Understanding Africa’s business environment: The case of the airline industry

By the end of 2010, Africa traffic accounts for 3 per cent of the world’s total passenger traffic, with average growth of 6.0 per cent per annum. The attractiveness of the growing African travel industry has been demonstrated by the fast expansion of foreign airline venture. Regardless of the lack of a strict topography and alternative modes of transport in the continent, the domestic airline is far less competitive. Around 79 per cent of traffic covered by foreign airlines carriers is noted. Therefore, it is worth exploring why domestic African airline industry has not grasped chances to build up their competitiveness. In this study, we thus apply Porter’s (1990) Diamond Framework to pursue answers to this issue and draw implications for academics, policy-makers and managers.