The African Business Aviation Association (AfBAA) held a forum at EBACE yesterday called Access Africa. The forum was established "to educate individuals and companies in the industry about the economic potential of conducting business in Africa." Speakers included Segun Demuren from EAN Aviation in Nigeria, Nuno Pereira from Bestfly in Angola and Gavin Kiggen from ExecuJet South Africa. AfBAA also announced that it had expanded its AfBAC event to create AfBAC Expo, which will take place in Johannesburg later this year.

“One of AfBAA’s guiding principles is to raise awareness of the continent’s potential, and that is what drives us to create these types of events,” said Rady Fahmy, CEO of AfBAA. “We are aware that many European companies are interested in developing African business but don’t necessarily have the information they need to hand. Access Africa is about providing tangible, practical information to support these professionals’ endeavors.”

This year, AfBAA (at EBACE’s African Pavilion, Booth V70) celebrates its fifth anniversary, as it launched at EBACE in 2012. Most recently, the organization revealed that its AfBAC event (the African Business Aviation Conference) will become AfBAC Expo, and will take place at Lanseria International Airport near Johannesburg, South Africa, from November 29–December 1. It will include a static display of aircraft and will be hosted at Execujet's FBO.

“We have achieved much in five years, but we know there is still much to do as our journey has only really just begun,” said Tarek Ragheb, AfBAA’s founding chairman. “We recognize that aviation in Africa doesn’t work in global or commercial isolation, which is why we are launching AfBAC Expo at EBACE. We want to bring together international professionals to share experience and knowledge in a dedicated environment. With Europe’s strong connections to the continent, we’re hoping to garner a lot of interest during EBACE.