Programme Director - Mr T Ngidi,
The Deputy Director-General: Civil Aviation - Mr Z Thwala CEO of Airlines Assoc. of Southern Africa,
Mr C Zweigenthal Official from the Dept. of Labour,
Ms Ntsoaki Mamashela Captains of the Aviation Industry Officials from the DOT,
Distinguished guests,
Members of the media,
Ladies and gentlemen.
I would like to take this opportunity to greet you all by wishing you a Happy Women's Day and indeed a Happy 2013 Women's Month. Nothing can defeat an idea whose time has come.
Ladies and gentlemen, your valued presence today brings closer to reality the aspirations of millions of women in South Africa who want to live in a country in which they can be whoever they want to be and become and achieve some of the best concepts and skills that we so wish.
Distinguished guests, we are meeting here today in the midst of realities posed by global economic recession which started in 2008. It is a fact that the recession has had serious implications for all sectors of the economy, including the aviation industry.
But, notwithstanding the challenges imposed by the global economic downturn, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) expects global air traffic to grow at a higher rate in 2013 and 2014 than it was in 2012. In the same period, world air cargois expected to increase drastically. This positive picture enjoins all of us, role players in the aviation industry, to continue planning beyond the existing economic challenges which have affected all countries.
We have to think creatively and out of the box to ensure that the aviation sector survives the crunch. A Letsema of this nature allows us to look at the issues on a global scale while we remain conscious of the realities on the ground, that is, challenges facing the developing world with a particular focus to South Africa.
This Letsema must allow us to share experiences while we seek to address transformation issues, the under supply of critical and scarce skills conditions in our country. There is no doubt that this ground-breaking work initiated here today will go a long way in revolutionising the global aviation industry and responding to the Nation's 2030 vision as stipulated in the National Development Plan.
Programme Director, aviation technology has resulted in the ease of mobility for both people and goods regardless of race, colour or origin. As a result of aviation we are now residents of one global village that is only separated by distance and time. When we look back on the role of aviation in facilitating human mobility globally, we need to celebrate humanity's victory against the force of gravity.
To attain this victory we had to understand the physics of flight and harness it so we could scale the highest possible heights and reach the longest distances.
While aviation has enabled us to fly higher and higher, Women's Day reminds us of the distances, as symbolised by apartheid and colonialism, to which human beings should never, ever descend. Once we defeated racial prejudice, we were able to rise against the worst manifestations of apartheid and we witnessed President Nelson Mandela emerge from incarceration to lead a new nation.
We rallied to the call that French poet Victor Hugo made in Europe that was fitting to our cause in South Africa when he wrote and I quote: "A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas".
A day will come when the bullets and bombs are replaced by votes, by universal suffrage, by the venerable arbitration of a great supreme senate".
A day will come when a canon will be a museum-piece, as instruments of torture are today. And we will be amazed to think that these things once existed"
It was the same Victor Hugo who had us earlier that and I quote: "Nothing can defeat an idea whose time has come". So today we call on all those energies to help us address the challenges we face in aviation today so we can open our markets to commerce and our minds to ideas.
The National Development Plan
Programme Director, as a country, we have made significant strides. During the term of office of this administration that is led by President Jacob Zuma, the National Development Plan (NDP) was drafted, adopted, and supported overwhelmingly by South Africans, showing us the way into the future.
Current government policies, plans and programmes that is the 2030 National Development Plan and the New Growth Path and others enjoins us to create a social contract that must help propel South Africa to higher developmental trajectory as well as build a more cohesive and equitable society.
And the transport sector remains a critical driver in the 2030 vision implementation to advance economic development, job creation, growth, and further provide equitable access to opportunities and services for all, while fostering an inclusive society and economy. Meaning that as a country and a sector we have to forge a social compact that continually builds a more equitable society where opportunity is not defined by race, gender, class or religion; meaning an enablement of access to employment and transforming ownership patterns of the economy.
The New Growth Path specifically creates conditions for faster growth and employment through government's investments, microeconomic reforms and further the effective unblocking of constraints to investment in specific sectors, chief among other being the transport sector.
Programme Director, the White Paper on National Transport Policy of 1996 states the importance of maintaining a competitive civil aviation environment which ensures safety in accordance with international standards and must further enable the provision of services in a reliable and efficient manner to improve levels of service and cost while contributing to the social and economic development of South Africa and the region.
In line with the NDP 2030 the Transport Sector is in the process of finalizing the National Transport Master Plan 2050 (NATMAP). NATMAP 2050 have a long term vision that will sustain South Africa's projected growth and will focus on integrated transport planning to ensure that the different modes of transport complement each other.
Economic contribution and challenges in the Aviation Industry
From being in the margins of post-World War II South African aviation industry, today, plays a critical role in our national and regional economy.
Programme Director, from economic point of view aviation contributes a weighty R74.3billion or 3.1% to South Africa's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This includes: By all measures this is a major contribution to a country that is yet to realize its full potential! In its 2013 forecast released last year the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said global airlines were expected to post an industry profit of R12 billion this year.
Speaking during the Annual General Meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Cape Town recently, Director General Tony Tyler noted the importance of aviation in linking Africa to the world. Tyler said "global connectivity which is enabled by aviation has a very powerful role to play in integrating the 54 national economies of Africa and connecting them to the world. With a few kilometres of tarmac, even the most remote destination becomes part of the global community".
Ladies and Gentlemen, the picture we paint above is one of an industry with an interesting past. Yet it is also an industry whose future depends not so much on what we did yesterday, but on what we are prepared to do today in order to secure a bright future for our children, to the fourth generation. And the time to start is now.
Aviation History of South Africa
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have called this Inaugural Aviation Industry Transformation Letsema to shine the spotlight on challenges in its formative years, but which has broken through.
Aviation earnestly began in South Africa in 1913 when citizens were invited to join the South African Aviation Corps (SAAC) as officer-aviators. According to the South African Power flying Association the Union Government did not have any training facilities so it negotiated with the Paterson Aviation Syndicate for the training of military pilots.
The school accepted 10 state-funded trainees. These were all white men. We are told that in addition the school also accepted three private pupils. One of these was South Africa and Africa's first female pilot at the time, Ann Maria Bocciarelli who obtained her license in 1913. The year 1913 therefore saw the advent of aviation in South Africa and at the same time marked the beginning of women's participation in the aviation industry in this country.
I said earlier 2013 marks 100 years since we started flying. I must also say that 2013 also marks the centenary of the 1913 Land Act, a law that was instrumental in the economic and political deprivation of Black people in South Africa!
This and similar laws ensured that without land, Black people were excluded from the commanding heights of South Africa's economic sectors of mining, commercial agriculture and indeed aviation to name a few. We have called for a transformation Letsema today because 100 years later, the letter of the 1913 Land Act is no more, but its essence which is exclusion based on skin colour and the hierarchy of race and gender is still very much alive in the aviation sector. Transformation in the aviation industry remains a major challenge.
Where transformation is taking place it is either slow or deliberately skewed. It simply fails to address the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality. One thing is very clear to me.
After 20 years it is insufficient to blame skills shortage alone as a reason for the lack of transformation. The challenges apportioned to this slow paced redress are myriad; inclusive is the gate-keeping in sectors of the industry.
Programme Director,
Ladies and gentlemen at this point please allow me to go back some 20 years to the famous 1995 Apollo 13 film which dramatized the moon-landing of 1970 and made the following line famous and I quote: "Houston, We have a problem"!
Indeed South Africa, we have a problem!
Here are statistics that will shock us especially as women in South Africa:
- of the 793 pilots employed at SAA, only 70 (8%) are female, so 723 are men.
- of the 214 pilots employed at SAX only (21) 10% are females, so 193 are men.
And we need to understand that these 8 and 10 % of females in the aviation industry represent women across the demography population profile. Demography is a vital tool in assisting us to meet the needs of all sectors of society and such profiles assist to avoid misallocations and inappropriate interventions.
It is also worth noting that since 1994, the national carrier has had 60 female cadets compared to 181 male cadets of which 48 successfully completed training, compared to 118 male cadets that also successfully completed training. Yet I have indicated above that more than a century ago Ann Maria Bocciarelli, together with the first 10 male state funded pilots became one of the pioneers in the aviation industry.
The vision of a balanced society can never be attained if our interventions continue to inculcate and entrench inequality in all its shapes and forms.
The transport sector cannot be allowed to continue be a travestor of justice. I have no doubt that the state in which we find ourselves today- the relative absence of women in key sectors of aviation - results from a deliberate act to keep out women from the sector.
The absence of black people today in any key sectors of our industry and society can only be the result of deliberate acts. If this is indeed so, South Africa, we have a problem! The ANC government is giving us all the broad opportunities to be champions in aviation.
We do not have any excuses to fail. Gate-keepin black people and women from the industry belong in the past. These have no place in aviation today. Equitable Empowerment of women and the blacks in aviation and aerospace is paramount, and we are not apologetic about it.
The high cost of aviation training cannot continue to be used as an impediment for historically disadvantaged individuals (HDIs) entering the market; when we have the Transport Education and Training Authority (TETA) specifically established to correct these anomalies.
Transformation will not happen overnight and by itself but transformation will definitely and deliberately materialize! Working together with our colleagues in the Department of Public Enterprises we will not back down from the full-scale transformation of the industry.
Learning from the past
The last decade tells us that this industry is capable of enormous change. We cut the accident rate by more than one-third. We survived the spike in oil prices. We improved labour productivity.
The industry developed Asia-Pacific into our largest market, one-third of allaviation. We found a global solution on noise and we are now focusing on carbonemissions. Aviation associations worked together to drive change with speed. What can stop such an enterprising industry to harness efforts and bring about transformational change?
Nothing! As I said, Nothing can defeat an idea whose time has come.
This year, as we commemorate the aviation industry's important centenary we ask you today to remember Ann Maria Bocciarelli and the many women pioneers in aviation ahead of Women's Day tomorrow. Some of the women pioneers are here with us today and we say "Malibongwe Igama LaMakhosikazi" 'You strike a woman. You strike a rock" Indeed nothing can defeat an idea whose time has come.
I dare not forget the significant strides made by women in aviation who continue to work hard, reducing risks and fighting fires. Women who represent the country well and raise the flag high. Women such as our South Africa's newly elected ICAO Vice Chairperson of the Aviation Security Panel for the period April 2013 to March 2014, the Acting Director at SACAA Ms Poppy Khoza.
The implications of such an election are that we are able to influence the agenda on aviation security matters globally. Women pilots and industry trailblazers who transcend boundaries such as Ms Asnath Mahapa, and Captain Refilwe Ledwaba. I am talking about the young vibrant upcoming ladybirds who own and paint the skies pink, the list maybe limited but their tireless work and intense passion for aviation surpass gender impediments.
We further commend ATNS for its ATNS' Women's Development Programme (WDP) and mentorship programme which recognizes the strategic imperative to provide a focused development and growth of women in the workplace. In March 2013, The University of the Witwatersrand School for Economic and Business Science conferred the inaugural Aviation Management Development Programme (AMDP) Certificates to thirteen (13) Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) employees.
This qualification is the first of its kind in the African continent. To further address the challenge of attraction and retention of skills in the aviation industry, the SACAA, entered into an agreement with the University of Pretoria to participate in the training of students in Aerospace Medicine and the first 10 degrees were conferred in March 2013.
The head of Aviation Medicine from SACAA has also been appointed as an extraordinary lecturer at the University of Pretoria with effect from 2013.
Ladies of the Skies, know that we are with you in looking ahead, beyond the cycles and shocks that dominate the horizon. Our duty is to work together to define a vision and build a sustainable future. Defining Our Future The time has come to think big. Our vision for the future of aviation in 2030 and 2050 begins with safety.
We should continue to maintain a record of zero accidents. We must continue to use technology to drive change in the air and on the ground. We must aim to continue striving to half carbon emissions, flying very different aircraft and using biofuels.
We must strive to eliminate queues with integrated systems ensuring security as we process passengers. We must strive to operate with almost no delays in globally united skies. We must strive to reach a point where as the aviation industry we share costs and profits equitably across the value chain. We must strive to be a consolidated industry of a dozen global brands supported by regional and niche players.
And we must strive to deliver value to investors. In just over a decade, I foresee $100 billion in profits on revenues of $1 trillion.
Programme Director, as we near 2050, the 10% margin must become much more robust. I foresee a future where governments act responsibly, ensuring safety, security and a level playing field. A future where airlines can build efficiencies across borders to better serve their customers and achieve sustainable profits to fund growth and innovation. An retail market with open access to Small, Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
With such developments in this industry women must rise above and take the opportunities in the industry to maximize the benefits associated with the aviation industry. We must make this a much broader reality. Change in all areas is possible.
This vision can be our future, and now is the time to take a step towards a 2050 that also boasts of an equitable representation of all sectors of the society at all levels in the aviation industry.
We urge all industry stakeholders to help us today lay the basic building blocks of a transformation strategy for our industry which going forward will be subject to thorough, vigorous and public debates. As I said earlier, nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. In order to fly we will have to give up the ground we are standing on
Ladies and gentlemen it is our patriotic duty to build that country we all dreamt possible in 1994.
A country that corrects the wrong perception about women. An aviation country that shares a plethora of ideas and initiatives to champion unwavering commitment to promote equality, admittance and unsurpassed international aviation safety and service standards.
A country that can identify challenges and binding constraints to transformation. A country that is able to address fears and resolve the inhibitions.
A country that will not defeat an idea whose time has come. I wish you fruitful deliberations and a successful conference, and hope that the outcome of this conference will help us achieve broad consensus with a clear aviation industry wide action agenda.
The time for the Aviation Transformation Strategy is now Happy Women's Day! And remember nothing can stop an idea whose time has come.
I thank you!
