Africa’s Aviation Growth Requires More Than New Aircraft — Allugundu By Raymond Enoch
Africa’s aviation industry must look beyond the acquisition of new aircraft and urgently strengthen the wider ecosystem required to support sustainable growth, aviation adviser Aslam Allugundu has said.
Allugundu made the observation in his latest Executive Perspective published on several dalies ahead of his participation in Aviation Africa 2026, where he is expected to engage aviation leaders on the continent’s growth prospects and the challenges of building sustainable aviation capacity.
According to him, Boeing’s projection of more than 1,200 new aircraft deliveries into Africa over the next 20 years presents a significant growth opportunity, but the arrival of additional aircraft alone would not guarantee the expansion of a viable African aviation industry.
He argued that finance and foreign-exchange availability, airport and cargo infrastructure, skilled personnel, operational capacity, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facilities, commercial readiness, bilateral air service arrangements, regulation and governance must develop alongside fleet expansion.
> “The risk is not only whether individual parts of the aviation ecosystem can scale. It is whether they can scale together,” Allugundu said in his assessment.
He also cautioned against treating Africa as a single, uniform aviation market, noting that market size, connectivity opportunities, infrastructure constraints and the economics of aviation growth vary considerably across regions and individual countries.
The aviation adviser therefore believes that the key question for African aviation should move beyond how many aircraft are coming to whether the continent has the capacity to build the infrastructure, financing mechanisms, human capital and regulatory environment required to absorb and efficiently deploy the new fleet.
The debate has also drawn attention to the role of the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) in converting fleet expansion into greater intra-African connectivity.
Responding to Allugundu’s post, aviation professional Hailegebrel Tadese Seboka said fleet growth would have greater impact if market-opening commitments under SAATM translated into actual traffic rights, stronger intra-African connectivity and commercially viable routes.
Seboka argued that the aviation ecosystem must bring together fleet development, infrastructure, financing, skills, MRO capacity, regulation and SAATM implementation if Africa is to realise the full economic value of its expanding aviation market.
Another commentator, Victoria Mofolo, further noted that communications, navigation, surveillance and air traffic management (CNS/ATM) infrastructure would also have to expand alongside fleet growth to ensure that the continent’s aviation system remains safe, resilient and capable of handling increased traffic.
Allugundu’s central argument is that Africa’s aviation opportunity is not simply about putting more aircraft into the skies, but about ensuring that the entire aviation ecosystem grows together and at the right pace.
He said the challenge for aviation leadership is to translate ambitious growth projections into “executable, sustainable ecosystem capability.”
The intervention comes as African airlines, airports and governments continue to pursue fleet expansion, infrastructure development and greater regional air connectivity, making ecosystem readiness increasingly important to the continent’s aviation transformation.
