Four East Africa countries are in talks to reach an open skies agreement. Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan are in talks to reach a multilateral air service agreement to open the East Africa’s skies.
These four countries are working on an open skies agreement to create one airspace to enhance air connectivity within the region.
According to Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCCA) Director-General, Gilbert Kibe, said Kenya, the countries were jointly working on a multi-lateral air service agreement. If an agreement is reached, the four countries would remove travel restrictions to create one airspace. He reported that “Before the end of this year, we will have the way forward on efforts being made by the four nations to open the skies so that our airlines can operate as domestic carriers,”.
He also established that in February last year, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta had signed a document on open skies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, binding the country to implement the policy by 2017.
“For the country to meet the next year’s deadline, we resolved to engage our three neighboring states so that we could work toward realising one airspace,” he said. In October, he added, the Kenyan government would invite players, including those from the tourism and transport industries, for deliberations to design the open skies policy.
The development has been welcomed by various hoteliers and stakeholders. According to the Association of Uganda Tour Operators (AUTO), it is agreeable that hotels are almost empty as only a few airlines have been licensed to operate scheduled flights to particular airports in the East African region. Perhaps an open sky approach will spur travel within the region, especially in the form of citizens of East Africa visiting other parts of the East African region.
East African states are moving away from marketing individual countries, to pooling resources, and marketing East Africa, as a single tourism destination with the tagline “seamless boarders”, and using incentives like the single tourist visa which permits a traveler to visit Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda under a single visa.