Aviation Africa summit in Cairo to address North African revival
Above: (left to right) Mark Brown, CEO of Times Aerospace, HE Sherif Fathi Attia Egypt's Minister of Civil Aviation and Alan Peaford, Chairman of the Aviation Africa Summit.
The two-day summit will focus on the key drivers to grow business and opportunities across North Africa and will be complemented by an exhibition area featuring more than fifty exhibitors.
His Excellency Sherif Fathi Attia the Minister of Civil Aviation said he welcomed the decision to bring the event to Cairo. “We are working with the event organiser to shape the agenda for the Summit,” he said. “There are key issues affecting Africa in general, North Africa in particular in subjects like aviation security, infrastructure needs and regional cooperation. The Egyptian government is lending its full support to the event and will be inviting our neighbours and friends across North Africa to be part of this important event.”
EgyptAir is to be the host airline of the event. Chairman and CEO of the EgyptAir Holding Group -which includes the national carrier as well as regional carrier Egyptair Express; Egyptair Cargo; Egyptair Tourism ( Karnak ) & Duty Free; Egyptair Maintenance & Engineering; Egyptair In-Flight Services; Egyptair Medical Services and Egyptair Supplementary Industries - Safwat Musallam said:
“This event gives an opportunity for all of our businesses to come together with suppliers, customers and competitors under one roof. We are very positive about the future but agree it is important that we can share ideas and get new ideas too.”
Mark Brown chief executive of show organiser Times Aerospace, said: “We are also pleased to have MoUs from all of Egypt’s airlines including charter, cargo and low cost carriers. These will all have top executives taking part in the event and meeting with exhibitors. We are expecting delegations from other African governments and their civil aviation authorities and of course other airlines, business aviation operators and from companies across the Middle East and Africa.”
The two-day summit will be chaired by Alan Peaford, MBE, the editor-in-chief of African Aerospace and Arabian Aerospace. “Cairo is the cross roads between the Middle East and North Africa and I would expect to see a lot of interest from the region – particularly given the close ties between Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
“There are a lot of misconceptions about the current situation in North Africa – but there are also some hard realities. Business has been in freefall for a few years. Tourism is the key to the revival of North Africa fortunes and that involves some challenges in terms of security measures, in safety culture and political will,” Peaford said. “This cuts across our entire industry from airline operations, to maintenance and other service providers through to airports, air navigation service providers and regulators.
“We proved at Aviation Africa in Kigali last year that the very open summit, addressing some challenging issues in an open and frank way and across the whole gamut of stakeholders proved beneficial and I was delighted that His Excellency, the Minister of Civil Aviation agreed that we should aim as high for the Cairo event.”
The Aviation Africa Summit and Exhibition will take place in Heliopolis, close to Cairo’s international airport on 17-18 April 2018.
Times Aerospace are publishers of African Aerospace
magazine and the award winning Arabian Aerospace
magazine (now in its ninth year of publishing), with both titles complemented by daily online news services.
