Airlines from sub-Saharan Africa had zero passenger fatality in 2016

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said that airlines from Sub-Saharan Africa recorded no fatality in 2016 when compared to other years in the last decade.

IATA made this known in its 2016 safety performance report of the commercial airline industry, saying that airlines from the region had zero passenger fatalities and zero jet hull losses.

In the document, Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s director-general, said the all accident rate was 2.30 per one million departures, compared to 9.73 for the previous five years.

He said that there was one non-fatal turboprop hull loss, putting the region’s turboprop hull loss rate at 1.56 (85% lower than its 2011-2015 yearly average).

“Sub-Saharan airlines delivered a very strong performance in 2016. But we must not rest on this success. Safety is earned every day.

“The lesson from Africa’s improvement is that the global standards like the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) make a difference.

“African nations should maintain this strong momentum by making IOSA and the IATA Standard Safety Assessment (for those carriers that are not eligible for IOSA) parts of their airline certification process.

“Regional governments also need to accelerate the implementation of ICAO’s safety-related standards and recommended practices (SARPS).

“As of year-end 2016, only 22 African countries had at least 60 per cent SARPS implementation.”

Juniac also said that all the 33 sub-Saharan airlines on the IOSA registry performed nearly twice as well as non-IOSA airlines in terms of all accidents.

Globally, the all accident rate (measured in accidents per 1 million flights) was 1.61%, an improvement from 1.79% in 2015.