Aviation Ministry to help AWA meet increasing demand

Mrs Cecilia Dapaah, the Minister of Aviation, said the Ministry was doing all it could to support Africa World Airlines (AWA) to meet increased domestic demand.

AWA currently has to serve the entire domestic air transport market due to the suspension of Starbow flights.

Mrs Dapaah said while Ghana was becoming an attractive destination for international airlines, including Qatar and Air Namibia, which would start operations to Ghana this year, the country currently had a problem with its domestic air transport sector.

Speaking at the second Aviation Breakfast Meeting organized by Aviation Ghana, in partnership with the Ministry of Aviation, Mrs. Dapaah said AWA was saddled with a huge responsibility of meeting the demand on the domestic front.

She said this was also likely to affect the bigger international airlines who transport passengers outside the country since the smaller airlines mopped up passengers from the regions to Accra for onward travel.

“We are looking at various ways to make sure we help AWA resolve this issue. Nobody wished the Starbow incident will happen, but it happened and we must deal with it, so very soon we will have some positive news,” she said.

Mrs Dapaah said plans were being put in place to ensure that AWA was supported in this regard adding that the Ministry would communicate the details of the plan as well as the outcome of the investigation into the Starbow incident.

Starbow’s aircraft was involved in an incident at the Kotoka International Airport in November 2017, when it skidded off the runway during take-off, causing the airline, which had been involved in previous incidents over the last three years, to suspend its operations.

The Second Aviation Breakfast Meeting, which involved aviation sector regulators and operators including airlines, reviewed issues raised in the first meeting held last year and efforts undertaken so far in addressing them.

The issues include concerns on double taxation of airlines by MMDAs, removal of import duties on aircraft spare parts, high cost of Air Operators License renewal and high airport taxes.