Kenya: Call to cut fuel tax and open skies

AFRICAN governments should remove taxes on aviation fuel to create jobs, help carriers grow and make air travel more affordable, the chief executive of the industry’s worldwide trade body said yesterday. Tony Tyler, of the International Air Transport Association, said governments should also speed up a plan, known as the Yamoussoukro Decision, to open their airspace to local carriers by 2017. The plan was signed in 1999 by 44 states. “At the moment Africa punches below its weight in terms of connectivity with the rest of the world through African airlines,” he said on the sidelines of an aviation conference in Nairobi. – Reuters