Africa's Airport Boom Faces Turbulence: Infrastructure Alone Won't Fix Fragmented Skies

Africa is building airports at a historic pace, driven by the recognition that aviation is not a luxury but a lever for economic transformation across a continent where 1.4 billion people generate barely 2% of global air traffic. From Ethiopia's record-breaking Bishoftu International to expansions across Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya, and beyond, the physical infrastructure of connection is rising. Yet the deeper architecture of policy—harmonized taxation, liberalized markets, open skies—remains grounded, and no runway can substitute for the political will to align the rules that govern what flies ab