The African Business Aviation Association (AfBAA) is exhibiting here at EBACE again (Booth Y140), for what will be the fourth year in a row according to Rady Fahmy, the association’s executive director. An Egyptian who lives in Canada, Fahmy says he is shuttling to various places in Africa every few weeks, and despite not having an aviation background, believes he’s really found his forte heading up AfBAA.

“I started out in finance at Morgan Stanley and then went into IT in Cairo, then moved into aviation as a business consultant,” he told AIN. There he found that his background was very useful, given that “the fundamentals of business are pretty much standard.”

Reflecting on how African business aviation has developed since he started (and AfBAA was established) in 2012, Fahmy said that, back then, “Africa was a hotbed of growth” in the sector. “Oil prices were at an all-time high and business aviation grew, as a result.

“The fundamentals are there–Africa needs business aviation for its entrepreneurs, oil & gas industry and medevac because it doesn’t have a well developed infrastructure. So it’s a good partner. But the continent is immense and many areas are not yet served, even by business aviation.”

Forward-wind to 2016 and many OEMs are now seeing Africa as “the last resort,” said Fahmy. “A lot of the optimism went away as the rate of growth has slowed–but we’re not seeing a bubble in expectations that will burst like it has in China.”

While Fahmy admits Africa can be viewed as four or five distinct areas, and many talk about it as “North Africa” and “Sub-Saharan Africa”, he said that AfBAA is “discouraging” these characterizations and wants to look at the continent as one place. “A business aviation person from Egypt is similar to a South African one,” he said. “And we’ve come to the realization that there is a lot of potential looking [to South Africa] too.” He said that he’d started to form a good bond with the Civil Aviation Association of Southern Africa (CASAA).

“Africa is a difficult market,” admitted Fahmy

. “I think the lull situation is there and a few OEMs are focusing less on the continent and more on two or three countries.” He noted that the main five are Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Angola and Kenya. “Morocco is in and out of the top five or six,” he added. The DRC has a lot of aircraft but “are more pre-owned.”

The continent also doesn’t have very many FBOs. “With the exception of a few, the vast majority are run by the state and don’t seem to be interested in relinquishing [part of their] ground handling, fuel etc. We continue to lobby on behalf of FBOs to secure space [at African airports],” he noted, adding that there is no reason an FBO can’t offer a similar level of security as the main terminal. “Let the passengers choose whether to go public or private.”

However, he agreed that there are a lot of places where government agencies are looking to better accommodate private aviation, even if they run the facilities. There is no private FBO that has yet received custom & immigration approval, although Fireblade at Johannesburg is hoping for this soon. “If anyone is able to get C&I approval it would be Fireblade,” said Fahmy. “It’s coming,” he added, referring to this service eventually being available more widely at FBOs.

At EBACE this year, AfBAA has “The African Pavilion” with several African business aviation companies set up in one large area, which is bigger than in previous years, “and has a better position,” said Fahmy. “We should benefit from a better footprint and be more visible.”

“We are going to the exhibition to get awareness” among the 25,000 or so visitors. By being in one pavilion with AfBAA running it, member companies can also get around the show rather than being tied to their booths all the time. Six of AfBAA’s 105 members have participated in the coordinated effort, he said.

Fahmy said that AfBAA has its conference scheduled for November 17-18 in Cape Town, South Africa. The meeting is also going to be bigger than previous events and have some novel aspects, said Fahmy. The African Business Aviation Conference (AfBAC) will be “more global” and also look at non-traditional areas, such as RPAS (remotely piloted aerial systems).

“There are two things we are working on at the moment. One thing is data [on African business aviation, which they started collecting in 2014]. And our next endeavour is folding the UAV/RPAS business into our association–we in Africa could be in step with the rest of the world,” he said, pointing out that in some ways Africa can be ahead in areas such as cargo (as it was with mobile phone payments). “We have established an RPAS committee and we’re going to have the first RPAS forum [in Cape Town].”