Ghana’s Africa World Airlines was presented with an IATA membership certificate on 26 October at an event coinciding with the opening of the First Aerospace and Aviation Exhibition in West Africa.
Raphael Kuuchi, Vice-President, Africa IATA, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency said that the association has a lot of resources that member airlines could leverage to grow their business and expand their network across the sub-region.
“We will encourage AWA to take advantage of the Association’s training resource to build their own capacity,” he said.
He said before an Airline becomes a member of IATA, it needs to pass the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA), where the Airlines were provided with some capacity building to prepare.
He added, that currently, the association has 33 Airlines in Africa, on the IOSA’s register, with 400 members globally.
“We want to see more African Airlines joining IOSA,” he added.
He said airlines on the IOSA register’s safety record is seven times better than airlines not on the register.
Richard Kyereh, Head, Commercial, AWA said: “It is an honour to be on the IATA register looking at the series of activities you go through to be on that register”.
He said “when an airline is listed on the register, they get more partnerships because other airlines build confidence in you and this will strengthen our collaboration with the bigger carriers.”