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Ethiopia - Brain drain threatens the African airline industry

By Kaleyesus Bekele

The mass exodus of cockpit crew, aircraft maintenance technicians and other aviation personnel from Africa to other parts of the world is threatening the survival of African carriers.

African pilots, technicians, engineers and air traffic controllers are being recruited by non-African companies and airports, causing the continent to lose its highly skilled personnel trained at a high cost. Most of the aviation professionals are recruited by Middle Eastern companies.

At an African aviation conference held on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Addis Ababa Hilton Hotel, Mr Christian Folly-Kossi, Secretary-General of the African Airlines Association (AFRAA), said that brain drain is costing the airline industry in Africa dearly, adding aviation professionals trained with Africa’s scarce resource are lured away by Middle Eastern companies. “Some countries in the Gulf are buying more aircraft than their population and they need crew who fly and maintain them. And Africa has become a good source of human capital,” Folly-Kossi told the conference.

Girma Wake, Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Airlines, said that employees of any company should be satisfied with what it earns. Girma said Ethiopian has managed to reduce the impact of the brain drain by rewarding its staff.


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