iblog

Members of the East African Community (EAC), that’s Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania with Burundi and Rwanda set to join in July 2007, last week signed a protocol that establishes the East African Civil Aviation Safety and Oversight Agency (CASSOA). This is the first such agreement on the African continent, and it is hoped CASSOA will help promote growth in vital regonal industries, including tourism and flower, fruit and vegetable growing. These are sectors where rapid transfer of goods and a lack of red-tape are essential. It will also have an impact on disaster management and make the movement of emergency staff and resources easier. Hopefully, the USA will see the CASSOA accord as a good opportunity to implement its Open Skies Agreement to allow direct flights. Currently, it’s an agreement on paper only, and no commercial airline is at present allowed to operate direct flights to the US from any EAC airport.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 6:01 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.