MedSky Airlines chief executive Seraj Al-Fituri used the opening keynote of the Libya International Aviation Forum and Exhibition in Tripoli to argue that Libya should stop treating aviation as a service sector and start treating it as a strategic industry. Speaking at the two-day event, which runs 3-4 November, he laid out five development pillars and drew a hard line on safety, telling the room that “safety is not negotiable in the aviation sector.”
A Carrier Flying Under An EU Ban
The context for the speech is the long flight embargo that has kept Libyan carriers out of European skies. MedSky, a privately owned airline, flies from Tripoli and Benghazi to Malta, Rome, Milan, Athens, Madrid, Dusseldorf and Paris. To keep those routes open, it has registered its aircraft in the EU, a workaround that lets it circumvent the operative EU flight ban on Libya.
That structure is unusual for a carrier of its size and speaks to the constraints the sector operates under. Al-Fituri said Libya has suffered for years because of the embargo and aviation isolation, and that breaking out of it requires the state and the private sector to work together rather than in parallel.
The Five Pillars
Al-Fituri set out five areas he said need development to leverage Libya’s aviation industry. The first is a new strategic investment outlook for the sector, with the aim of making Libya a bridge between Africa and Europe. The second is airport development, which he framed as a precondition for handling growth rather than a parallel track.
The third is a national strategy for destinations. The fourth is investment in human resources across all subsectors. The fifth is international cooperation and partnerships, including in airports. He added two further requirements to the list: digital transformation, including e-payments, and the development of cargo freight, where he said investment can help.
Safety And The Regulatory Gap
The safety remarks came under the heading of safety and sustainability, and they carry weight given the EU ban. Al-Fituri did not detail specific deficiencies in Libyan oversight or name regulators. His argument was that safety standards are the entry ticket to international partnerships, not a box to be ticked after route expansion.
The regulatory picture is the harder half of the problem. A carrier can register aircraft abroad and satisfy foreign authorities aircraft by aircraft, but a national industry cannot scale that way. Al-Fituri’s call for international cooperation and partnerships in airports points at the same gap: foreign operators and investors need a domestic framework they can rely on before they commit capital.
Why Geography Is The Asset
The commercial case rests on location. Libya sits between Europe, Africa and the Gulf and Asia, and Al-Fituri asked whether the country has actually invested in that geographical position in order to leverage it commercially. His answer was that it has not, and that the sector needs a strategic vision shared between the private and public sectors to change that.
For a market reader, the comparison is straightforward. Hub economics reward carriers that can aggregate traffic from several directions and sell connections. Libya’s position offers that geometry on paper. What it lacks, on Al-Fituri’s account, is the airport capacity, the destination strategy and the manpower to convert geography into transfer volumes.
Beyond Point-To-Point
MedSky’s own network was built with that logic in mind. Al-Fituri said the destinations were chosen strategically as both economic and tourism markets, and that the company’s vision is not just about adding flights. He described the goal as building bridges between Libya and Europe to promote links between trade and economic sectors.
He was direct that no single company can do this alone and that a joint effort across the aviation sector is needed. MedSky, he said, wants to be part of building an aviation industry rather than just a transit point, and the sector should move beyond simply transporting passengers between destinations.
The Investment Pitch
Addressing potential international partners directly, Al-Fituri said Libya’s aviation sector is ready for investment and development, but that it needs long-term cooperation and partnerships rather than one-off deals. He closed by posing the questions he said should frame the strategy: what kind of future aviation sector Libya needs, how many cities in Europe and Africa it wants to link to, how many Libyan youths it wants to create jobs for, and how much added value it can add to the sector.
Those questions were left open. The forum and exhibition continue through 4 November in Tripoli, with the pillars Al-Fituri set out now on the record as the sector’s opening position to foreign investors.
Sources
Photo: Habib M'henni (CC BY-SA 4.0)
