high stakes
Foreign export banks enable African aviation through aircraft financing for carriers like Ethiopian Airlines, but these complex, state-backed deals shift substantial risk to local taxpayers when business models fail, as demonstrated by Air Sénégal.
When a Boeing or an Airbus lands in Addis Ababa, Nairobi or Dakar, it is often the end product of a financial chain far more complex than a simple aircraft purchase. Across the continent, investment in aviation is often the result of close co-operation between airlines, states, foreign companies and the export-import banks of those foreign companies’ home countries.
