Brazzaville Hosts Crucial ASSA-AC Council Meeting
The bright conference room at Brazzaville’s Radisson Hotel was bustling on October 14th during the opening of the ninth council meeting of the Central African Air Safety Agency, ASSA-AC, chaired by the head of the Congo Civil Aviation Authority.
Delegates from the six ECCAS states gathered for two intense days to approve revised training manuals and a three-year program that experts consider the cornerstone of the region’s air safety oversight architecture, crucial for deeper economic integration and smoother passenger flows.
Three-Year Training Roadmap Ready for Approval
The council is expected to validate volumes one and two of the community training manual, along with a detailed schedule covering initial and recurrent courses for inspectors, airworthiness engineers, and accident investigators between 2024 and 2026.
“These documents will strengthen operational skills and give our citizens the connectivity they deserve,” officials stated, emphasizing that ECCAS adopted common aviation safety regulations on August 16th, a major milestone positioning the bloc as a credible corridor for trade and tourism.
The three-year roadmap includes partnerships with renowned training centers and the brand-new ASSA-AC Academy, scheduled to welcome its first class in December. Continuous learning will run concurrently, with contracts under negotiation to keep experienced professionals updated on evolving International Civil Aviation Organization standards.
States Prepare for Regulatory Migration
Starting in 2026, member states will begin migrating their national codes to the community regulation. Cameroon has already begun the transition, while technical teams are preparing awareness sessions in the Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea, the latter being supported by the Spanish Civil Aviation Authority for Spanish translations.
Officials say harmonized regulations will reduce duplication, lower compliance costs for airlines, and boost confidence among international partners. “A single safety language means faster approvals and more predictable investment conditions,” it was noted, viewing this policy as complementing the Single African Air Transport Market.
However, migration requires intensive capacity building, particularly in accident investigation and data analysis, where some national agencies are still understaffed. The approved training matrix allocates over 150 days of specialized courses and twenty on-site mentoring missions to address these gaps before the first audits in 2027.
Financial and Infrastructure Hurdles Persist
Despite strategic progress, the agency continues to face uneven state contributions and challenges in collecting the regional safety fee from airlines. A draft recovery agreement, to be signed soon, is designed to streamline billing and ensure predictable cash flow for ASSA-AC operations.
Sustainable funding is critical as several airports, particularly in landlocked states, require modernized surveillance equipment and reliable power supplies to comply with upcoming oversight visits. Sector economists estimate the modernization bill could reach $25 million, a modest sum compared to the potential for boosting regional trade.