In a region of 300 million people, fewer than 7.2 million passengers take to the skies each year. 

This is not because people do not want to fly. 

At the recent Southern African Development Community Tourism (SADC) Alliance Think Tank, aviation and tourism leaders agreed that outdated and protectionist aviation policies are stifling Southern Africa’s tourism ambitions and holding back economic growth.

Natalia Rosa, tourism project lead for the SADC Tourism Alliance, said the gathering was a vital step in building the partnerships and political will needed for change. 

“The demand is there. The economic case is undeniable. Until our aviation policy catches up with our ambitions, Southern Africa’s tourism and trade will remain grounded. What we need now is political courage, policy coherence and a unified commitment to making air access the driver of inclusive growth it should be,” she stated.

Despite public commitments to the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), national policies, political gatekeeping, and fragmented governance continue to block regional air access. 

“We’ve got the commitments. What we don’t have is implementation,” said George Mothema, representative of the Board of Airline Representatives of South Africa (BARSA). 

While countries, such as South Africa, have adopted civil aviation policies, many still embed protectionist elements that contradict SAATM’s principles, limiting private airlines from expanding viable routes and favouring under-capitalised state carriers.

FlySafair’s Johannesburg-Harare route shows the growth potential when barriers are removed. 

When the airline entered the market, it halved ticket prices, and demand surged. 

“It’s a fantastic route. It performs incredibly well,” said Kirby Gordon, chief marketing officer at FlySafair. 

“We’d love to put on a second daily service. But we can’t. Why not? Politics,” he said.

Lee-Anne Bac, advisory director and head of strategy and sustainability at BDO South Africa, noted that tourism’s progress is often limited by decisions in other portfolios. “Tourism doesn’t feature highly in national policy. Political players don’t really understand tourism or what we’re trying to achieve,” she said.

She highlighted the Cape Town Air Access initiative as a rare success story of multisectoral collaboration that should be replicated across the region.

Aaron Munetsi, CEO of the Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA), called for enforceable accountability. 

This includes creating national baselines for air access barriers, committing to incremental reductions and building a regional scorecard to monitor policy delivery. 

“Reducing airline operating costs isn’t just a sectoral goal – it’s an economic one. The business of airlines is the backdrop on which we are building our economies,” he said. 

Rosa said the Think Tank was the start of a sustained push to address the aviation bottlenecks limiting the region’s potential. 

“In a region of 300 million people, flying should not be a luxury or a political favour. It should be a lever for growth. But we can’t build that future without building the policies, partnerships and platforms to support it,” she said.

The Think Tank identified several priority outcomes to accelerate progress. 

These include breaking down protectionist policies to open viable routes to more operators, investing in public and private airline scalability, building cross-ministerial alliances that treat air access as infrastructure, and tracking and publicly reporting progress with a shared regional scorecard.

The SADC Tourism Alliance’s formation and activities are supported by the Joint Action NaturAfrica/Climate Resilience and Natural Resource Management programme, co-funded by the European Union and the German Government and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH.