an airport is_a city_a state
When on March 6 2012, European time, a bright white A340-300 plane landed at Mogadishu’s Aden Abdulle International Airport, history was being written. The touchdown of the Turkish Airlines machine marked the inauguration of a brand-new flight route connecting Turkey’s largest metropolitan area of Istanbul with Somalia's sprawling coastal capital. But this was no ordinary inaugural flight. The fanfare on the tarmac, made up of a large welcome committee comprising hundreds of officials, including the then Somali President, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister as well as CEO of Turkey’s national airlines, alluded to the fact that something more significant was being celebrated here. Flight TK646 was proclaimed to connect two cities, countries, regions, people and economies, but most importantly the arrival of the plane on Mogadishu’s airport tarmac was to announce the beginning of an entirely new era. And simultaneously it was to mark the end of another.
Prior to this landing, Mogadishu’s aerial connectivity to the world had for decades been severely hampered. This period of aerial isolation began with the fall of Siad Barre’s military government in 1991, European time. Decades of bloody civil war that followed damaged and destroyed much of the country, its urban settlements and state infrastructures, including its prime aerial gateway to the world: the international airport in Mogadishu. The impact of relentless warfare on the ground soon also showed above the country’s skies. With no government in place and no effective air traffic control available anymore to regulate flight movements above the country’s skies, Somalia effectively also lost control over its own airspace. Soon after the airspace above the East African country was considered unsafe for civil aviation by the International Air Transport Association. While Somali airspace management was displaced to neighbouring Nairoibi, from where remaining flight movements were now controlled from, so were millions of Somalia’s inhabitants. Over the decades they were to form a large war-diaspora, dispersed to neighbouring regions all the way to far-off continents. A similar fate to that of its human inhabitants was to also befall the planes of the country’s national airline, Somali Airlines.
When in 1991, European time, Captain Jama Ofle steered a Somali Airlines Airbus A310-304 from Moghadishu’s international airport towards Frankfurt, Germany, few knew this former routine international flight was to become the last transcontinental flight of the East African airline. Now unable to safely return home, Ofle, like thousands of other Somalis, was to seek refuge in so-called Canada. Meanwhile, the aeroplane he had left behind in Frankfurt was similarly unable to return to war-ravaged Mogadishu. Unlike Ofle, who as a fellow human enjoyed the right to asylum, the plane couldn’t seek sanctuary in Canada. It instead remained grounded for more than a year at Frankfurt’s international airport, where its fate remained unclear. Like many Somali refugees, it was to remain exiled. The plane was finally transferred to Yemen, Qatar and eventually Pakistan, where the 33-year-old machine still flies under a different livery for the Pakistani military. The airlines’ other planes were later returned to their respective leaders abroad or flown in the so-called US and Burkina Faso. They, too, were to never be seen again in Somali airspace, let alone on Somali soil. By the end of 1991, European time, when Mogadishu was overtaken by oppositional forces and its former state leaders exiled, the airline had fully ceased operations. Its planes had completely vanished from the skies.
Founded in 1964, European time, four years after the country’s independence from Italian colonial rule (and short British colonial stint), Somali Airlines started as a joint enterprise between the Somali government and Italian government, as well as their state airline Alitalia. Though finally independent, Mogadishu, like other decolonising ‘African’ and ‘Asian’ capitals, wasn’t able to fully cut ties with their former colonists. The country instead proceeded with tactical relationships with their former colonists. This pragmatism on the side of the (now formerly) colonised had its root in the realisation that political autonomy didn’t necessarily mean economic autonomy. While more and more colonised gained their independence at the time, the global economy they were plunged in was still dominated by empires that had built their wealth and produced market monopolies. To strengthen these new states, cursed with notoriously weak and depleted economies, and to further their long-term political survival under colonial modernity, many saw themselves forced to rely on technical, military and financial support from different ‘developed’ countries (empires). This type of modern infrastructural aid was always tied to the condition of donor states, who at this point of imperial timekeeping were of course also monopolists in the aviation industry. Likewise, the first planes Somali Airlines received were «gifts» by the settler-colonial government of the «US». The latter was, from the invention of the first jet engine in 1957, European time, onwards up until the rise of their European counterpart Airbus (1970s, European time), the globally dominant player on the civil and military plane market. Governments that were keen on building their own national airlines as symbols of modernity and independence remained, as a result, heavily dependent on this particular empire. It enabled jet-producing states to sway strong political influence on buyer states and diktat prices as well as political conditions for purchase opportunities. The US «donation» to Somalia was likewise aimed to sway the Mogadishu government away from Soviet influence that had already taken roots in neighbouring Ethiopia and was threatening the Cold War ‹equilibrium› the US envisioned for this region. It wasn’t a gift in the stricter sense, but rather a political bribe.
The combination of advanced US technology and Alitalia’s long aviation experience (founded in 1946, European time) helped Somali Airlines quickly build its own ambitious business model. When in 1977, European time, Italy’s state airline sold its remaining stakes to the Somali government, Somali Airlines was finally nationalised. It was fully Somali-owned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Airlines#/media/File:Somali_Airlines_6O-SBN_FRA_1984-8-16.png
The airlines’ livery was inspired by the central state’s ‹Star of Unity› Flag, designed in 1954, European time, by the Somali scholar Mohammed Awale Liban in preparation for the regions’ independence. The white star on it references the five traditional ethnic Somali regions, the blue, the ocean and sky the country is surrounded by. The flag's design was also integrated into the country's planes’ livery, showcasing how national airlines aren’t merely economic motors of the state. It hugged them from the tail all the way to the front, effectively taking the state’s flag with each takeoff to the skies. The airline's name was displayed in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet on the planes’ bodies, reflecting the diversity in cultures but also the impact imperial reign and relationships had on the Somali language. Somali Airlines machines were soon to be seen across the skies of the ‹Horn of Africa›. They were to become an integral part of aviation history in East Africa and with it also the pride of a nation. The state’s airline played an important role in the process of statecrafting, becoming a prime example for Somali modernity, mobility, autonomy and unity to the outside – but more importantly also to its very inside. Its design strategies became part of the country’s aesthetic vernacular (even decades after the end of the airline, the airline and its design elements continue to captivate the imagination of many of its people).
Over the years the company spearheaded the state’s diplomatic and economic ambitions, aiming to stabilise the presence of the young republic on a map designed by Europeans against Somali and other colonised peoples’ interests and futures. The Somali state invested heavily into the future of the airline, spending huge amounts of money to, for instance, send their pilots for training to Lufthansa’s training facilities while also building in-flight services that could match with their European and ‹North American› competitors. These efforts paid out when in 1974, European time, the company was given the title of the «Africa’s Best Airline». The airline's soft power success provided the government and country a formidable international reputation and brand aesthetic. It helped render Somali Airlines part of the national imaginary, a symbol for where free Somalia and free Somalis can go – a seemingly endless horizon; an unimaginable future in the skies.
https://twitter.com/XaldoonN/status/1639045580616867843/photo/2
At its peak, the airline connected Mogadishu with cities far and wide. Its white and blue machines were over the decades to be seen on tarmacs in Abu Dhabi, Doha, Djibouti, Jeddah, Dubai, Frankfurt, Cairo, Nairobi, Rome, Sanaa, Aden, Dar-Es-Salaam, Muscat all the way to Victoria. While transporting hundreds of thousands of passengers from and to Mogadishu, cabin and ground staff who exited the country’s planes to walk from jet bridges to terminal halls to layover hotels and back to their planes, showcased a ‹modern› and emancipated face for the country. They fulfilled the dual role of national airlines and their thousands of employees: servicing the country’s economic and political interests while also functioning as brand ambassadors for the country to passengers and onlookers alike, the latter being potential future passengers, visitors and investors.
source: https://twitter.com/DailyJubba/status/1428254570090799107/photo/2
Beyond its international services, Somali Airlines however also played a significant role in modernising national infrastructure and connecting vastly spread-out Somali regions, including Haregisa in now semi-independent Somaliland and Aluula in still disputed Puntland. It was important to maintaining territorial unity and materialising state sovereignty over the difficult-to-travel terrain; to connect the centre of power to the southeast with remaining coastlines and inland territories. The airline helped realise this new state with its new borders.
By the time opposition to the Barre government turned into militant unrest in the 1980s, European time, the airline had become a powerful symbol of the central government. At the time, Somali Airlines was already struggling from mismanagement and undergoing several unsuccessful attempts of restructuring. When Barre began to massacre opposing fractions in the Somali peripheries, Somali Airline planes were included in the war machinery. They were used to mobilise state troops against opposition parties and civilian populations (similarly as to how Ethiopian Airlines was recently deployed by Addis Ababa/Finfinnee to transport central government soldiers to Tigray during the war-genocide there). The lines between civilian and military became blurry. Or more accurately put: the close relationship and interchangeability between civilian and military technology and infrastructure was made visible. As a result, Somali Airlines was exposed for what it is. A tool of control of the central government. Likeso it quickly became a target of several attacks by anti-government groups. When the airline finally ceased operations in late 1991, European time, its planes were grounded and so were Somalia’s civil aviation ambitions. It marked a tragic (and temporary) end to Somalia’s young civil aviation history.
The country no more had a government, a national airline nor a functional international airport. Somalia was soon after widely (and arrogantly) deemed a ‹failed state› by outsiders. The cessation of civil flights in, from and to Somalia had another detrimental and far less talked about toll. With no more flight connections available, Somalis were also no more able to exit or enter the country by plane. This significantly changed how and where people could flee to in the decades of severe violence and plight to follow. The closure of the airport forced millions of Somalis to rely on other more dangerous means of transport to flee, be they by foot, boat or other vehicles. It arguably also impacted the toll of those who died while fleeing the violence. While the region slipped further into a cycle of catastrophes and while its people were forced to disperse into all directions, the skies above this contested land were emptied of civil aircrafts.
After years of instability, the African Union helped in 2010, European time, establish relative stability in and around Mogadishu. This allowed for the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to claim full control over the capital city. One of its first actions was to accelerate infrastructural repairs, including those of the state's decaying aviation industry. Three years prior, the TFG had already proceeded to rename the capital’s airport in honour of the Republic’s first President to Aden Abdulle International Airport. This was to also divorce the facility from Siad Barre’s regime. It was perhaps an attempt to tie it back to the airport’s emancipatory history and spirit: that of Somalia’s independence from European colonial rule.
Founded under Italian colonial occupation in 1928, European time, the Aeroporto Petrella di Mogadiscio was the first airstrip in this heavily-fought over region to connect the Italian colony by way of its other colonial possessions in Eritrea and Libya with Rome. It was also from where the land was surveyed and demarcated, its population controlled and from where many of Mussoloni’s planes eventually departed to bomb the Ethiopian Empire during the Second Italian invasion of the Empire in 1935, European time.
When the TFG renamed the airport in 2007, European time, attacks by Al Shabab militants were still frequent in and around Mogadishu. Like other critical infrastructure, the government responded by turning the airport into a high security zone protected by hundreds of African Union soldiers. The foreign soldiers were to ensure the safety of passengers, airport staff and aircrafts that started arriving at the airport again in 2004, European Time, when international flight connections resumed to Mogadishu. Small privately-owned Somali and Kenyan airlines dared conducting these flights into the still violence-inflicted city. The revival of Mogadishu’s Airport enabled a flow of passengers in and out of the city and larger country, many of whom were returnees from Somalia’s several million-large war diaspora. Following decades of warfare, exiled Somalis increasingly took the chance of relative political stability and the resulting recommencement of international flight connections to return to their homeland. These exilées had been vital for the longevity of the fragile economy of the war-torn country. By the time Somalia had not just been highly dependent on international aid, but also billions of remittances sent from its large war diaspora. 25% of the country’s GDP had from 2010, European time, until the present in fact been remittances sent by refugees. Beyond communal financial support, the reconstruction of the country’s demolished infrastructure was also dependent on the expertise and funds of returnees. For this, they required a safe aerial passage into the country.
Up until the arrival of Turkish Airlines, Somalia was only accessible by flights carried out by small private carriers from Addis Ababa/Finfinnee, Nairobi, Djibouti City and Kampala. Though each city is only a few hours away by flight from Mogadishu, these connections were convenient for Somalis displaced to those countries rather than for the equally large diaspora who were displaced to Europe, Turtle Island and so-called Australia. As none of these private airlines were part of larger international code-sharing programs nor did they offer transcontinental flights to connect with flights outside of East Africa, the journeys of Somalis from the ‹West› remained particularly long, tiring, uncomfortable and expensive up until Turkish Airlines began to serve the market. Beyond the volatile political and security situation, this further deterred people from travelling to the country. For its own economic upliftment, the country needed to attract large international airlines to service Mogadishu. And this too was heavily dependent on the question of security.
Aden Abdulle International Airport was thus soon rendered into one of the safest, if not the safest zone in the country. So much so that MPs from Somalia’s Parliament, other government officials, even the President were later sworn in at the airport rather than in Parliament or the Presidential Villa. The airport arguably became the heart of the country, critical to its own survival. The airport was the country and the country the airport.
source: https://nordicmonitor.com/2021/08/top-minister-claims-erdogans-arrival-in-somalia-changed-the-fate-of-the-country/
Months following the transition of power over the capital, Turkey’s President Recip Tayyip Erdogan arrived at Aden Abdulle International Airport, the first visit of a non-African statesperson to the country in almost twenty years. The visit followed years of aggressive diplomatic efforts by Ankara and coincided with a drought that had killed hundreds of thousands of Somalis just weeks before. Erdogan promised much needed help. His visit turned into a timely opportunity for both. While providing Somalia’s frail government legitimacy, it also helped Turkey foster the image of a global player. Turkey’s involvement in Somalia was Erdogan’s way of flexing his ability to exert soft power across Africa and the rest of the so-called Global South. Some analysts argue that it wasn’t the particularities of the case of Somalia that attracted Turkey’s interests for the country, but the opportunities that arose and that could be used by Turkey to the benefit of Erdogan’s diplomatic standing. Somalia was only a test case for Turkey’s imperial influence.
Erdogan was greeted by a sea of Turkish flags when touring the city in a bullet-proof car. The flags were hoisted across critical infrastructure, from the airport, to the city’s port and a thoroughfare the ruler passed. Their foreign statesman’s presence was to mark an end to the country’s political and economic isolation from the world. He would declare it the end to outsiders looking at Somalia as a «no go zone». For that the Turkish President promised heavy investments into the country’s infrastructure, providing millions to construct new hospitals, schools and water wells. Part of this plan was to also leave a deeper Turkish footprint in the country: by building an enormous Turkish state embassy, an adjacent military training facility (TURKSOM) as well as a culture centre (Yunus Emre Institute), promoting Turkish culture across Mogadishu and Somalia. This was accompanied by scholarship opportunities offered to thousands of Somali students in Turkish universities and medical aid offered to Somali bomb blast victims. They were to be flown out from Aden Abdulle International Airport to Turkish hospitals.
All of this was to further Turkey’s imperial ambitions in East Africa. Shaped by neo-Ottoman fantasies, Turkey’s new expansionist agenda tapped into a much older history of imperial and colonial interventions of the former Turkish empire on the continent. When Erdogan declared 2005, European time, as the «The Year of Africa», the country was also given observer status in the African Union. It opened dozens of new embassies across Africa (43 to date). Meanwhile the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) and the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) followed suit with additionally opening dozens of offices across the continent, pushing the trade volume between Turkey and the continent by nine fold within two decades alone. Turkey has moreover hosted several forums and summits with African leaders and been heavy on diplomatic tours through the continent (similar as those now seen by US delegates who desperately aim to cut China’s influence across different African states, but not Turkey’s). To date, Erdogan has visited more than 30 different African countries, more than any other non-African leader had done so far. These investments warmed up relationships between Turkey and different African governments. And of course they were well-orchestrated and broadcasted widely, serving to create the image of a new global order in which Turkey’s stakes were heavier than before Erdogan’s authoritarian reign. Turkey’s own aviation industry played an important role in this agenda.
When in 2020, European time, 54 km northeast of the metropolis the brand-new Istanbul Airport was opened in a grand ceremony, it was to increase passenger capacities and become a global transport hub, matching those in Dubai, Singapore, London and Paris. The airport was to pull in severely more traffic and revenues than the previous Atatürk Airport had. Transport infrastructure, specifically airports, have historically not just served to connect people, but to also boost the GDP of host cities, regions and countries. To host a major airport is besides national prestige, also a question of influence as can be seen by the amount of new transit hubs that have recently been popping up in regions that have historically been outshadowed by traditional hubs such as Frankfurt, Atlanta or Tokyo. The new airport, a pet project of President Erdogan, is just a few years within operation already considered by passenger count to be one of the world’s five busiest airports in the world. And much of its traffic consists of transit passengers who arrive at Istanbul Airport on board Turkish Airlines planes, or code–sharing partners.
source: https://aviationsourcenews.com/news/turkish-airlines-focuses-on-rebuilding-network/
The airline looks back at a 90-year-old history and is today one of the world’s leading airlines. While being founded by the state, the government today ‘only’ owns a 49.12% stake in it. Turkish Airlines today flies more than 400 Boeing and Airbus machines to 315 destinations domestically as well as internationally. Its planes connect to 124 of 195 official countries in the world (in comparison Lufthansa flies to 74 and Emirates to 85 countries' ‹only›), which easily makes it the world's most widely connected airline. 62% of the world's states can technically be reached with the airline. On the African continent alone, Turkish airlines flew, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, into 52 cities. That’s more than any other major European, North American, Middle Eastern or Asian airlines does. It is even better connected within the continent than the continent’s own South African Airways is (only Ethiopian Airlines competes). The highly-awarded international airline, since 2008 also part of the prestigious Star Alliance program and thus also in code-sharing program with some of the largest imperial airlines, is easily the biggest non-African player on the continent. It filled in the gap others wouldn’t by flying into regions other’s wouldn’t for revenue and safety concerns, creating a semi-monopoly that it could turn into profit. Turkish Airlines thereby also benefited from highly protective aviation market policies across Africa, which to this day render travelling from one part of the continent to the other incredibly expensive and arguably unnecessarily complicated, forcing many passengers to leave the continent to a European or Middle Eastern transit hub before returning back to the continent. Erdogan desired for this hub to be Istanbul rather than Paris, London or Dubai.
When Turkish Airlines in 2011/2012, European time, announced its flight connections to Mogadishu, the airline was met with a lot of scepticism and bewilderment by industry experts. Ever since the discontinuation of Alitalia flights from Rome to Mogadishu in 1985, European time, no major international airlines had touched ground in the country. The apparent risk the airline was taking with this new destination that had for long been avoided by major airlines because of security concerns and fiscal feasibility, was mostly driven by the interests of the airline’s majority stakeholders. Erdogan’s insistence to mark Turkey’s presence in Somalia pushed Turkish Airlines into a region the company would have probably continued to steer away from had it been a privately-owned enterprise. But Turkish Airlines went ahead with what was considered a high-risk plan. This fell in line with Erdogan’s larger imperial politics, who viewed economically-isolated conflict regions with globally underserviced or fully-unserved markets as an opportunity for Turkish influence. By tapping into such markets, the government aimed to exploit the weak political and economic situations of such regions to create market monopolies and benefit from produced dependencies. Strikingly that same year when Turkish Airlines announced flights to Mogadishu, it also launched a similarly critical route: The Istanbul - Kabul route. Just as in the case of the Istanbul-Mogadishu route, no major airline had for decades flown into the city and country prior to Turkish Airlines (Emirates started its Dubai-Kabul services in December 2013). Only three months after launching its Mogadishu services, Turkish Airlines also began servicing Kabul from Istanbul.
Years later, both the Mogadishu and Kabul routes would, against all predictions, turn into two of the airline’s most profitable international flight routes. This was precisely because of Turkish Airlines' pioneering role in establishing these flight routes at a time when no major international airline would. What both further share: for both the majority of passengers weren’t Turkish nationals but Somali and Afghan exilées from Europe who would fly into Istanbul’s transit hub to catch connecting flights to their respective homelands. While passengers to Kabul largely comprised Afghans travelling from Germany, the country with the largest Afghan population in Europe, travellers to Mogadishu often embarked from Scandinavia and the UK, countries with some of the largest Somali diasporas in Europe. For many of them the airline would significantly ease travels to their homeland, allowing them to benefit from code-sharing programs, strategically timed connections, i.e. shorter layovers, competitive pricing and world-renowned on-board services. It softened their material relationships. This stood in sharp contrast to straining journeys passengers had to undertake to both destinations prior to Turkish Airlines’ arrival. From their inception onwards both routes carried great symbolic, political and economic value to the departure country, but also to their arrival destinations.
source: https://supplychaindigital.com/company-reports/ska-international
At the time Turkish planes started flying into Aden Abdulle International Airport, the airport had still been considered a security risk by the International Civil Aviation Organization. For decades it carried the lowest airport security grading issued by this UN agency (‹Zone 5›), rendering the airport particularly unattractive for international airlines and travellers. SKA Air and Logistic, a Dubai-based logistic firm that had previously worked to provide security and logistical solutions for airports from Baghdad, Kabul to Kampala, was tasked by the Somali transitional government with changing just that. They were to bring the transport hub back to international standards, redeveloping its infrastructure, from improvements to security and to passenger movement to baggage flow.
Since Mogadishu’s airport was, besides the city’s seaport, the main entry way into the country, it was also one of two main revenue sources within this depleted economy. This heightened Erdogan’s interest in controlling this gateway. For this a new airport management company, FAVORİ LLC, was set up in Turkey. The company, suspected by the UN to be tied to Erdogan’s son, was given in 2013, European time, a 15-year-long exclusive contract to manage ground handlings of the airport. 55% of the airport’s revenues were to be taken by FAVORİ LLC while the remaining profit was channelled back to Somalia's government. Meanwhile Turkey continued to pour millions into the redevelopment of the airport, building a new road to the airport (Airport Road), a brand-new control tower to help Somalia take control over its skies again, as well as a modern terminal that would replace the old run-down one. The airport now looks like a modern industrial complex, featuring cafés, duty free shops and money exchange booths, all that would come to signify a modern airport – as well as prominently placed Turkish Airlines signboards. To no one’s surprise the construction firm that built the airport and the management firm that now runs the airport belong to the same Turkish company.
Four years after his first visit, Erdogan returned to Mogadishu’s to open the new airport terminal with another fanfare. By then the airport and with it, the country had changed.
With relative calm now governing the city, a post-war reconstruction boom started to emerge, hurling property prices to the skies. New businesses started to spread across roads redeveloped and improved with the help of the Somali and Qatari government.
Aden Abdulle International Airport had successfully been removed from the International Civil Aviation Organization list of unsafe airports (2013), Somali airspace control had returned from Nairobi back to Mogadishu and so have tens of thousands of Somali exilées. Amongst them were also thousands of Somali business people who saw a responsibility and opportunity in the reconstruction of their city and country. Millions of USD in reconstruction, remittance money and other aid money started flocking into Mogadishu. A large part of it was carried on board Turkish Airlines planes. The airline is however also accused of transporting something else: millions of USD in bribe money for the Mogadishu government to allegedly further Turkish economic, political, military and cultural interests and influence. Very successfully so one could argue. Turkey was at this point not just in charge of the country’s main airport, but also its largest seaport. The latter was handed over to the Albayrak Group, a Turkish transport management firm run by one of Erdogan’s closest friends, known to be notoriously close to the Turkish governing party. Both transport hubs that in 2011, European time, were temporarily decorated with Turkish flags to welcome Erdogan during first visit to the city and country were now controlled by no other than Turkey itself.
source: https://www.newarab.com/analysis/turkeys-growing-influence-horn-africa#article-0-slider-0
Turkish influence continued to seep into the country in a variety of ways. Five kilometres away from the airport, along the Wadada Jaziira, Turkey occupies four square kilometres of land completely free of charge. At a cost of 50 million USD, Ankara has built its largest overseas military base TURKSOM upon it. The base is used by Turkey to train thousands of Somali soldiers to counter Al Shabab and other militant threats to the central government. As part of their training, Somali soldiers are forced to learnTurkish, sing the Turkish anthem and march under the Turkish flag. Turkey wasn’t just building an army, but also marking its long-term presence by directly undermining Somali state and cultural autonomy. The country elegantly blurred the lines between so-called hard and soft power, influence and intervention.
But it isn’t just Somali military trainees who are exposed to Turkey’s cultural engineering policies. Civilians haven’t been spared either by Turkey’s imperial influence. Though Turkish TV shows and film productions had already entered Somalia in the 1990s, European time, their popularity reached a zenith when Erdogan began his aggressive charm offensive in 2011, European time. The leaders' eagerness to ‘support’ Somalia didn’t just leave an impression with the Mogadishu government, but also many of its war and isolation-wary people. Turkish entertainment productions gained in traction. Within weeks, they started to dominate the local entertainment market, overshadowing formerly dominant Hollywood and Bollywood productions. This followed a global trend that the Turkish state had been actively shaping and steering: furthering their country’s cultural clout by heavily investing into the export of its entertainment products – and with it also its narrative and interpretation of the world. Turkish TV shows and films have over the years become a major revenue source for the country, particularly in Muslim-majority countries. In Somalia too, assumed cultural similarities have helped Turkish productions gain in popularity and eventually sideline US and Indian productions. They have further helped boost a burgeoning local dubbing industry, an employment market of its own, that has become the backbone for country-wide dissemination of Turkish-language productions. Not everyone wanted to rely on dubbing however. Turkish language classes were experiencing a flood of new enrolments, with thousands of Somalis propelled to learn Turkish. This was further accelerated by educational support programs and employment opportunities provided by Turkey to the largely young population of the country, many of whom started seeing Turkey as a country of opportunities and wealth. Since 2011, European time, a growing number of Somalis started to settle in Istanbul and Ankara particularly, opening businesses and changing the fabrics of certain parts of these cities (where they have become targets of racist attacks in 2021/2022, European time). Across hospitals in Somalia, many built and/or funded by Turkey, another critical development could be observed: a rise of Turkish names given to newborns. Names such as «Istanbul» or «Turkey» gained in popularity in the country. Another popular name was «Erdogan», showcasing how deep Turkey’s foot print in Somalia had really become.
When Erdogan had arrived in Mogadishu in 2015, he eyed a city as well as a sky under Turkish control. He wasn’t looking as much at Somalia, but at a Turkey that had successfully expanded its imperial grip far beyond the Mediterranean.
https://ec2-13-210-123-186.ap-southeast-2.compute.amazonaws.com/daily-news/ethiopian-airlines-to-land-in-mogadishu-for-first-time-in-four-decades/
The improved, modernised and securitised transport infrastructure of Mogadishu would, as predicted, attract hundreds of thousands of Somali exilées to return to their country of origin. By using the Istanbul-Mogadishu flight route, they would prompt high profits for the Turkish national airline and its transit hub, Istanbul Airport. The success of Turkish Airlines would seven years later pull another major airline on the map: neighbouring Ethiopian’s own Ethiopian Airlines. Africa’s now largest airline, also a Star Alliance member, announced in 2018, European time,following four decades of cease of operation (in the wake of the Ogaden War), to finally relaunch its Addis-Ababa/Finfinne - Mogadishu flight route. This was a response to Turkish Airlines' success in Somalia. Ethiopian Airlines intended to break their monopoly by directly tapping into Turkey's strategy of economising the desire of millions of displaced Somalis to connect to their homeland. Two years later, another major airline, Qatar Airways, would follow suit. This would eventually shrink Turkish Airlines’ net profits. It would however also provide more options and competitive prices for travellers to Mogadishu, who are now able to benefit from multiple major airlines flight networks and code-sharing programs. While this is an overall negative for Turkey, it could also be seen as proof of Turkey’s and with it Turkish Airlines leadership role in the world.
The absence of its own national airline rendered Somali mobility a matter of dependency. This was particularly heavily felt during the COVID-19 lockdowns, when flight routes were temporarily interrupted and Mogadishu was cut off from international transit hubs. For years, discussions about the revival of Somali Airlines were held amongst Somalis. Be it the government in Mogadishu and former employees, or ordinary Somalis who would offline and online passionately discuss the matter. When in late 2022, European time, the Somalia Ministry of Transport and Aviation appointed a committee to plan the relaunch of Somali Airlines, plans finally seemed to materialise. For this they secured the support of Ethiopian Airlines, an African national airline invested in logistically and financially supporting different African national carriers. The airline is presumed to provide similar capacity support to Somali Airlines as previously provided by Alitalia upon the founding of the airline. So far however, the plans to relaunch Somalia’s national airline remain on paper only.
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=02rJAsbWOvY
Few months after this committee was launched, Somalia aviation had something more tangible to rejoice about. The country’s airspace was, following 32 years of being considered an uncontrolled airspace by the IATA, finally given ‘Class A’ status again. It provided Somalia the ability to autonomously control their own skies again, enabling them to direct the more than 400 planes that cross its airspace every day. The new Air Space Management Centre in Mogadishu became the central point from where Somalia was to now manage its own skies from. To increase workers’ capacities and increase training autonomy, the opening of the Somalia School of Civil Aviation was also announced. The school is to raise a new generation of Somalia’s air traffic controllers. This reclassification will necessarily also lead to a significant increase in revenues for the Mogadishu government, which like many other states, charges for overflight rights over its airspace. But it will symbolise something more important: a regain of Mogadishu’s autonomy over its own sky.
And maybe more so than the government now holds control over its own land.
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