So. It’s 2025, and 26 hours are spent flying from Johannesburg to Dakar, only to end up detouring through Istanbul—yes, leaving Africa to travel within it!  That’s not a punchline it’s the absurd reality of traveling within Africa in 2025. I genuinely feel like a broken record discussing once again how the logistical bottlenecks in the continent are withholding our capacity to grow and scale. But, perhaps if you are a broken record enough, it will facilitate transformation

Buckle up, dear reader, its gonna be a bumpy flight.

At the risk of just being a fear mongerer, naysayer, and doom screamer – reports and studies show that what will improve the logistical nightmares in Africa is a concerted efforts on the individual and collaborative parts of governments and private sector. State leaders have to come to a consensus around free movement policies in Africa – particularly the real and imagined fear of uncontrollable migration which seems to be the thing holding back the signatures. On the other hand, private sector leaders across sectors need to pool their capacity and resources together to ensure that the physical and technological infrastructure is built, but also to ensure that we can increase the number of flights between countries in Africa. There is a lot of creativity, courage and boldness that will be needed to make a reality out of the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) and the Free Movement Protocol (FMPP) at policy, infrastructure, and at the level of cost.

We are seeing good strides at regional level though. It’s that continental thing – complicated by disharmonised legal and regulatory systems among other things I don’t wish to mention for fear that I will digress.

Anyway, let’s keep pushing this to our network. Who knows – maybe an investor, president, or someone with a vision may be pushed to leverage their influence towards greater change. Here at the Academy – this is the bit we can do with our corner of power