The launch of the project last month to pilot the liberalisation of air travel in the continent was received with much welcome.

It’s the best indication yet that the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) could finally become a reality.

15 African countries have agreed to open their markets to each other without hindrance under the initiative dubbed SAATM Project Implementation Pilot.

In addition to testing how the open airspace between the countries will play, the aim is to show that the continent has all it takes to make it work.

This should hopefully persuade countries still clinging to nationalism and protectionist policies that have long been shown to be retrogressive and not worth the trouble.

The policies have ensured airfares remain some of the highest in the world and have ensured Africa’s air transport market remains stagnant and underdeveloped.

These have in turn ensured Africa’s contribution to global air traffic has remained tiny at around 1.9 per cent, making the continent miss out on improved revenue generation and employment opportunities for its people.

Much, therefore, is riding on the successful outcome of the SAATM pilot project.

It has been a long journey to reach this point. It began in 1988 under the auspices of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the precursor to the African Union. It was during a meeting in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire, that member states first agreed on the necessity to liberalise air services.

It would be another decade when, in 1999, 44 member states signed what came to be known as the Yamoussoukro Decision in which they committed to "deregulate air services, and promote regional air markets open to transnational competition.”

Not much changed, however. Airfares are not only expensive to this day, but one will often hear bitter complaints about how restricted airspace has resulted in some inexplicable inconveniences, expensive both in time and money.

For instance, one will often hear how to visit some African countries it is easier to fly out of the continent and then back in through some connector in Dubai or some city in Europe. Count the time wasted on the lengthened journey and the additional cost this entails.

The Single African Air Transport Market was inaugurated in 2018 to seal the gaps and lay the framework for the implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision.

But it is only now, four years later, that things seem to have started moving in earnest with the launch last month of the SAATM pilot project. Things are hopeful, however.

Set to take off in 2023, the pilot project should be proof of concept. Indications are that the continent stands to greatly benefit when the Single African Air Transport Market is fully implemented.

Available figures show that, at only 1.9 per cent of global traffic in 2019, Africa’s aviation contributed $63 billion to the continent’s GDP and 7.7 million jobs. Half a million of these jobs are direct.

It is projected that the figures will improve with the operationalisation of the single air transport market. A study by the African Union shows that with the implementation of the single transport market the continent would gain an additional $4.2 billion in GDP and 596,000 new jobs, and see a reduction of nearly 30 per cent in airfares.

The GDP and jobs might seem modest given the vast needs of the continent, but they are a start. One might look elsewhere such as in the European Union to see how it might pan out in the long run.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) shows how the creation of a single aviation zone in 1993 in European countries saw annual traffic double over the following decade. This gives an idea of what we might expect of the SAATM.

A similar example is cited of South Africa and Zambia. When they reached a bilateral open-skies agreement in 2013, fares between the two countries fell by nearly 40 per cent, and air traffic increased 38 per cent.

Though such bilateral agreements have not worked so well elsewhere in the continent, the figures are tantalising.

The thing is to look at however the larger picture. To even achieve the modest gains projected by the African Union study it will take a good number of member states to join in.

So far only 35 of Africa’s 54 countries are signatories to the Single African Air Transport Market. But they represent 80 per cent of the existing aviation market in Africa.

If all of them should be ready by the conclusion of the pilot project it will make for a great start, including in boosting cross-border trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area.

The views expressed in this article are of the writer