China's investment in African mining has fueled its growing demand for these resources, especially for electric vehicles and other technologies.

Developing its Silk Road initiative sea ports to control strategic trade routes has also been at play in Tanzania (Port Bagamayo) and Djibouti (Port Doraleh).

The Tanzania Air Force has operated a large number of Chinese aircraft for a while including the very capable Chengdu J-7G acquired in 2013. While Djibouti now serves Chinese military interests with its close proximity to the Gulf of Aden. Since the port project was founded in 2013, the Djibouti air force has taken on two Harbin Y-12E Turbo Pandas, one Harbin Z-9WE helicopter and a Xian MA60 transport aircraft.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) at least 21 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa received large consignments of Chinese arms between 2019 and 2023.

Clearly it’s a revenue-driver and Chinese dealers hawk arms to African nations by offering cut-rate prices, and as one bewildered European sales person told the author “They carry wads of dollar notes in their briefcases to curry favour with the would-be customer. Its very frustrating.”

The Pakistan Air Force pulled off a huge marketing stunt for the Chinese during its recent spat with the Indian Air Force in early May. When the PAF’s very capable Chengdu J-10CE and Chengdu JF-17Cs, shot down five enemy aircraft, three of them being the highly-capable fourth-generation Dassault Rafale, with the very long range Chinese PL-15 air-to-air missiles, African air force chiefs must have taken notice.

The Nigerian Air Force operates both the Chengdu F-7 and JF-17, and could now look at the J-10CE as an option.

There is also continous speculation that Egypt has bought the J-10CE, and hosting the recent ‘Eagles of Civilisation 2025’ exercise when J-10Cs flew alongside Egyptian AF MiG-29M2s between April 19 to May 4. did nothing to dim that speculation.

There is no way the Egyptians can afford them, but President SiSi’s government could come to some barter agreement with its mineral resources, including copper, gold, silver, zinc, platinum, phosphate, iron ore and coal.

What the US would say is another matter, given it has ploughed billions of dollars of military aid into Egypt since the 1975 Camp David Accord. Using the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) initiative would curtail future US military aid to Egypt, which led to Cairo abandoning attempts to buy 24 Russian Su-35 Flanker-Es in 2019, even though the first batch were ready for delivery. These are now being delivered to Iran and Algeria.

The Egyptians are no strangers to Chinese fighters having operated a large number of Chengdu J-7s in the past, as have Namibia, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

The Hongdu K-8 Karakoram light attack/jet trainer has also been a very popular purchase by African air forces – Egypt, Ghana, Namibia, Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe have all operated the type although the Ghana Air Force examples were grounded within a year or so because of a lack of support - a regular criticism of buying Chinese.

Africa has been a destination for some other more obscure light attack/jet trainers. Sudan bought six Guizhou FTC-2000Gs known as the JL-9, to replace its A-5 Fantans during 2016, deliveries were completed by 2018. Zambia in 2016 became the first and only export customers of the Hongdu L-15 attack/fighter trainer variant known as the JL-10 Falcon.

Like so many countries in Africa, Sudan and Zambia enjoy close relationships as major trading partners with China, and as Europe abandons much of Africa because of conflict, particularly in the Sahal region, there will undoubtedly be more business for China.

After Kenya Airways disclosed its first net profit for more than a decade at the end of March, its chief executive Allan Kilavuka could be forgiven for reflecting on a tough job achieved.

After all, Kilavuka, who formally took the helm of the carrier in early 2020, just as the pandemic hit, has spent much of the past five years fighting a rearguard action. That was not just in the face of the Covid crisis, which crippled the whole air transport sector, but also the underlying challenges at Kenya Airways, which has seen it in restructuring mode for much of the last 10 years.

However, despite the profit return, Kilavuka is aware the restructuring of the carrier is far from complete.

“It’s a big milestone,” Kilavuka acknowledged, speaking to African Aerospace on the sidelines of IATA’s Ground Handing Conference in Nairobi during mid-May – notably the first time the event has been held on the continent in its 37-year history.

Kenya Airways posted a net profit of KShs5.4 billion (US$41.5m) for the year ending 31 December 2024, turning around a loss of KShs22.7 billion (US$180m) as the first phase of its Project Kifaru restructuring efforts paid dividend. That was driven by a six per cent rise in turnover to KShs188m (US$1.46m) while passenger numbers increased four per cent to 5.2 million and cargo volumes up a quarter.

“To be completely honest, it’s a bit better than we expected,” Kilavuka said. “Last year we made the highest profit in the history of the company, the highest revenues, the highest number of passengers.

“But we are not done yet,” he added.

Kilavuka, a former GE and Deloitte executive, had been running Kenya Airways’ budget airline Jambojet since December 2018 when the call came to take charge of the wider group.

Kenya Airways – which has the strapline ‘The Pride of Africa’ – had for many years been something of a poster child for African aviation; having enjoyed modest, but stable profitability, being among the first in the region to join a global alliance in the shape of SkyTeam and securing investment from Dutch carrier KLM. However, as it expanded, the carrier began running into financial challenges and has been hampered by legacy costs and debts since.

Kilavuka set about resetting the business, striving to improve the airline’s fundamentals and its operations under its Kifaru restructuring programme. It struck fresh labour deals to boost productivity, optimised its fleet and network, and reached agreements with lessors and suppliers to lower its cost base.

But while Kilavuka could point to improvement in the underlying performance of the business – Kenya Airways recorded an operating profit in 2023 – fuel price volatility and foreign exchange losses continued to stifle the airline’s net result until last year’s record performance.

 

Capital key

In another sign of Kenya Airways’ stabilisation, the financial recovery also paved the way for trading in the carrier’s shares to resume on the Nairobi Stock Exchange in January. Trading in Kenya Airways shares had been suspended for more than four years amid Covid and after the government floated the idea – which it subsequently dropped – of nationalising Kenya Airways.

However, if the results last year – which were supported by a stable currency and a more benign fuel price environment – are better than Kilavuka may have dared hope, progress is still needed on the next step towards the carrier’s long-term financially sustainability.

“Now we have to capitalise the business,” Kilavuka said. “In fact, our original plan was that by 2024 we would have fresh capital, and that fresh capital was supposed to help us to expand and do some Cap Ex, so refurbishing of the aircraft, engines and so on. And we are late.

“For us to recapitalise we have to get approvals from our shareholders and our principle shareholder [the Kenyan government] is yet to give us the express approval,” he explained. “In the meantime we are doing it informally as we wait for the approvals. We have a few leads that are looking very promising, but nothing yet that we are able to announce. We hope that this year we will be able to announce an investor.”

Securing a strategic investor is also vital to the carrier being able to meet its longer-term goals, which include ambitions to double revenue and passenger numbers by 2030. “The plan for the next five years is the airline will increase its fleet, from 34 to close to 60 – including widebody cargo aircraft,” he said. “So, there is a concern in terms of the pace of the capitalisation.”

That task is made even harder given the challenge airlines globally face in securing aircraft, both with supply chain issues hitting availability and affordability today and delivery dates for new aircraft at a time where manufacturer backlogs are booked out for the coming years.

“This plan is subject to availability of aircraft,” Kilavuka said, “which currently we don’t have availability. In fact, it [the availability] is worse than it was when we set up the plan.

“And the fact we have not been able to recapitalise means we cannot place the orders just yet. So, this is why it’s important for us to get the approvals and then we can announce our plans and place our orders.”

 

Strategic plan

Kilavuka says the airline has a plan approved by the board, which would need to be validated by any new strategic investor, which envisages adding aircraft next year.  “But once we have the strategic investor, we will actually place orders for brand new aircraft from the OEMs. That’s next year. So, we would have clarity on how exactly the 2030 vision will roll out.”

The airline operates a passenger jet fleet of Embraer 190s, Boeing 737-800s and Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Kilavuka said it would be looking at both narrowbody and widebody aircraft as part of a new fleet order.

A further plank of the strategic growth plan is diversifying by growing its cargo activity to 20 per cent of its overall business. The airline added two Boeing 737-800 freighters last year, helping it boost cargo tonnage 25 per cent in 2024 with notable expansion of services in the Middle East.

Kilavuka says the first step in meeting its cargo aspirations is to better use its existing assets. The two 737-800s joined the carrier’s two existing 737-300 freighters.

But the airline is also looking at bringing in widebody freighters as put of its cargo development. “We are looking at Boeing 767-300s, two of them, and to use the belly [space] more efficiently and hopefully we are able to expand next year,” Kilavuka said.

During 2024, Kenya Airways restored flights to Maputo in Mozambique, while also adding flights to the Somalia capital Mogadishu and domestic services to Eldoret. But Kilavuka sees far more potential to connect Africa.

“We need to densify Africa, there are many gaps in Africa we need to fill,” Kilavuka said. “For example, we don’t fly to Gaborone, we don’t fly to Windhoek in Namibia. There are very many cities we don’t fly to. We need to densify the network, that’s the opportunity because we are a network airline.”

One network opportunity the carrier is looking at progressing in West Africa is Accra in Ghana, where Kilavuka discussed the possibility of Kenya Airways establishing a secondary hub during an early May meeting with Ghana president John Dramani Mahama.

“Then we have lots of opportunity in Asia, particularly India and China. We fly to those places, but there are opportunities for different cities as well.”  Kenya Airways currently serves Mumbai and Guangzhou respectively, as well as the Thai capital Bangkok.

The carrier will add a second London operation in July, when it begins services from Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International airport to Gatwick. Kenya already serves Heathrow daily.

The carrier has begun codesharing on the Heathrow route and beyond with recent SkyTeam recruit, Virgin Atlantic. It also serves Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam Schiphol in Europe, the respective hubs of SkyTeam partners Air France and KLM.

“In Europe we only fly to three places, and we use the network of our partners airlines to fly, but we have opportunities to exploit. Istanbul is a very attractive one.” Kilavuka said.

Kenya Airways, which also serves Dubai and New York JFK internationally, also recently reiterated its interest in potential services to Mexico.

“There are many, many opportunities. We just have to roll them out very systematically, so we don’t overheat as well,” said Kilavuka.

Crucially, Kenya Airways is also seeking to tap into partners to develop this connectivity, particularly within Africa. However, there has been little headway in a mooted wider link-up with South African Airways.

Kenya Airways had tentatively teamed up on a partnership initiative with SAA in 2021 with a view to potentially creating a pan-African airline holding company. But after agreeing an initial codeshare, and with both carriers working through restructuring efforts, this appears to have gained little traction.

“I have to admit that we have had little progress,” said Kilavuka, noting this is unfortunate given that Kenya Airways is now “ready to move” having finished the first stage of its restructuring.

Intriguingly, Kilavuka was himself linked with the top job at SAA earlier this year as the state-owned carrier sought to appoint a full-time CEO. In the end, South African transport minister Barbara Creecy confirmed she had opted to re-appoint John Lamola to the SAA CEO role.

With little movement on a wider partnership with SAA, Kenya Airways has in the meantime identified other opportunities within Africa. “The whole point is how we utilise our assets, how we expand inorganically using each other’s assets,” said Kilavuka. “We are identifying, even if they are less formal, partnerships and we see a lot of opportunities for us to utilise our assets collectively better.”

And Kilavuka is in no doubt of the need to grow in scale. “We definitely need to be bigger,” he said. “Because the smaller you are, the higher the unit cost. For us, we would spread out our fixed costs to a larger operation.

“We therefore need to expand,” Kilavuka said. “And we can either expand organically or inorganically through partnerships. So, we choose partnerships as a faster way to expand.”

 

Growth hurdles

During a press conference at IGHC in Nairobi, IATA director general Willie Walsh flagged the strong performance of traffic growth in African aviation since the pandemic.

“If we look at where Africa is today versus 2019, it’s about 14 per cent, 15 per cent ahead of where it was, which I think is a significant development and points to the opportunity that exists in Africa,” he said.

Kilavuka, however, notes that this growth remains off a low base and believes governments in the region need to do more to enable Africa’s “fragmented” aviation sector to prosper.

“It is important for us to grow aviation and to grow it fast,” he said. “Governments in Africa need to address the challenges and the obstacles that are put in front of aviation players, including very high taxes in Africa and the related costs that translate to high ticket prices.

“That is why it is very difficult for African operators to be efficient because of these obstacles and also there is inferior infrastructure,” he said, noting the need to update airports and air traffic control systems in the region.

In 2028 Rwanda hopes to have a shiny new airport as the country seeks to take another big step forward in its ambitions to create an African hub for travellers and cargo.

The New Kigali International Airport (NKIA) will not simply be a world-class airport, but the plan is to develop an airport city around it, featuring a logistics zone, education and real estate development, an exhibition centre, and sports, leisure, healthcare and entertainment complexes, explained Jules Ndenga, CEO of Rwandan government holding company Aviation Travel and Logistics (ATL).

Naturally, the priority for the airport’s masterplan is to ensure everything is ready that is required to create a hub with the capacity in its first phase to handle eight million passengers and 150,000 tonnes of air freight annually.

However, “what we did with the airport city concept is to ensure that we plan for everything,” said Ndenga, in terms of reserving land so that co-ordinated investment in developing the various elements of the city can be achieved.

NKIA, which is located 25km southeast of Kigali, is being developed in a partnership with the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) as the majority shareholder with 60 per cent of the shares while ATL owns 40 per cent.

The earthworks for NKIA’s original design were under way when Doha’s involvement in the airport’s construction entered the picture. The work to prepare the site was not halted, even as a new design with a much larger airport was devised, to keep the project moving, explained Ndenga.

The development is being delivered through two major construction packages: workstream 1 (WS1) and workstream 2 (WS2).

WS1, which is finalised, includes earthworks, runway, taxiways, and aprons, substations, roads, and utility networks. These works are undertaken by Mota-Engil Engenharia e Construção África, SA, under the supervision of Dar [Dar Al-Handasah Consultants (Shair and Partners)].

Dar, a global aviation design consultancy, has been supporting the delivery of NKIA since 2020.

“Combining exceptional aviation planning and design capabilities with an intricate knowledge of Rwanda and its local context, Dar is providing the detailed design and supervising the construction of a greenfield airport that promises to establish Rwanda as a regional hub and a continental gateway to Africa and to the world,” said Elie Kharrat, director of Dar Consultants Rwanda.

Upon opening, NKIA will feature a 120,000 sqm passenger terminal building, offering four-star airport services, in a modern, green and smart environment. The design of the terminal is inspired by the hills that are an ever-present feature of Rwanda’s landscape.

The project is targeting LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council, one of the most globally recognised and respected standards for sustainable design. The terminal building is also being assessed by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) of Rwanda for Green Mark Certification, insuring compliance with all the requirements for a green airport.

The WS2 package is being constructed by the joint venture comprising Urbacon Trading and Contracting Rwanda Ltd as the leader of the JV, Mota-Engil Engenharia e Construção África SA, and Consolidated Contractors Group SAL. Dar continues in its role as consultant supervising the WS2 construction works.

WS2 will cover the development of the terminal building, control tower, cargo terminal and all the airport’s supporting infrastructure for an airport of more than US$2bn in value.

As Rwanda looks ahead to the economic and social ripple effect of NKIA, in addition to the employment impact during construction, today’s Kigali International Airport (KIA) must handle rising traffic volumes with its small terminal until NKIA opens.

KIA handled 1.3 million passengers in 2024, with a target to reach 1.5 million this year, said Charles Habonimana, the airport’s managing director. Since the pandemic, traffic has been growing at eight per cent annually.

KIA’s growth strategy naturally puts flag carrier RwandAir at the centre. “RwandAir is our sister company, and our strategies are aligned. We sit in the same room and discuss how they want to grow,” said Habonimana.

The airport is working with other carriers to increase frequencies on their existing routes, such as Ethiopian Airlines, which now serves Addis Ababa three-times daily from Kigali, Kenya Airways which operates two to three daily flights, as well as Brussels Airlines and Turkish Airlines which operate dailies flight to Kigali from their European hubs, as well as attracting new carriers and adding new destinations.

Qatar Airways returned to Kigali, offering a connection to its Doha hub in mid-June, a service coordinated with RwandAir.

The volume of transit traffic is growing, as intended, as airlines develop connections to wider networks. This is in evidence during the two banks at KIA when the airport can become congested.

“We are working on optimising what we have already, but it wouldn't make sense to invest a lot into the existing airport as commercial flights will be moving,” said Habonimana. “We are looking at how we can use technology as best as we can to make the process more efficient and give passengers the same level of service.”

The airport is witnessing a rise in cargo traffic due to RwandAir’s European flight services, plus the carrier’s dedicated Boeing 737 freighter routes to Dubai and Djibouti, said Habonimana. The airport handled over 20,000 tonnes of freight last year, and expects 25 per cent growth this year.

Much more is expected at NKIA. “Rwandan farmers tell us they need more capacity because they have the products and the market, so it's up to us to match that by building the required infrastructure,” he added.

When KIA’s traffic is transferred to the new airport, the existing airport will continue to serve its private aviation customers and seek to attract new ones.

The drones are operated by the Border Management Agency (BMA), which is a statutory body charged with securing South African ports of entry and international boundaries. 

Home affairs minister Leon Schreiber launched the project in May, following two test phases in December and April. During the tests, the drones helped the BMA to apprehend thousands of illegal immigrants entering the country from neighbouring Zimbabwe. 

“There are two models being rolled out, the Evo Max 4N and Evo Max 4T. The 4N is designed specifically for night-time operations with starlight vision and long-range thermal cameras, which allows us to operate in the darkest conditions.  

“These devices can fly at speeds of up to 43 kilometres per hour, tracking people or vehicles across wide areas,” Schreiber said. 

The minister said the drones have exceptional navigation capabilities which allow them to identify and track multiple objects while relaying real-time intelligence data to the BMA command and control centres.

The BMA has also invested in the training of personnel to operate and maintain the drones. So far, eight drone pilots are being trained as the BMA looks to expand the drone surveillance project. 

“The success of the airborne border surveillance project is not just about the devices and technology. It is also about the people who operate them, and the cultural shift that comes with integrating these systems and technologies into our operations,” Schreiber said.  

According to the Border Management Agency, South Africa is battling against large numbers of illegal immigrants who flood the country from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and several other poor African countries in search of employment and opportunity. 

The BMA also faces serious crimes including the smuggling of stolen vehicles out of the country, explosives into the country as well as the smuggling of goods and illicit cargoes in and out of the country’s porous borders.