Members of the African Business Aviation Association (AfBAA) have voted in Nuno Pereira, Managing Director of Angola-based BestFly, as the association’s Vice-Chairman. 

Pereira has been regularly involved with AfBAA since inception with BestFly committing to its Founding member status at an early stage. Since launch he has been extremely active and a strong vocal representative for the organisation.  

He is frequently present at the AfBAA symposia, AfBAA Pavilions, and also hosted the Association’s second members only Rendezvous event, at BestFly’s Luanda home base in February 2015. 

Pereira will support Association Founding Chairman Tarek Ragheb in lobbying African governments and educating them about the benefits of business aviation to the economy; profile raising of Africa’s position on the international aviation landscape; and in his supplementary role as Chair of the Budgeting Committee will manage forward finance and budgeting. 

“We are delighted that Pereira is taking up this prestigious and extremely important role for AfBAA. He understands the Association, our mission and vision, as well as having first-hand knowledge of the challenges affecting the growth of business aviation on the continent,” said Ragheb. 

“Pereira is also an astute businessman which will ensure he can add value to our strategic development. We thank Achuzie Ezenagu for his work in this role until now, and look forward to developing it further with Pereira.”

Pereira joins AfBAA’s Board at a period of growth as it confirms a 20 per cent rise in membership numbers in the last six months. Now, with 111 members, AfBAA is preparing for the first ever African Business Aviation Conference, AfBAC, which will be held in Cape Town, South Africa this year on November 17 and 18.  

The event is already attracting leading aviation experts as speakers, and eminent aviation companies as sponsors. Confirmed speakers include representatives from OEMs Bombardier and Gulfstream, as well as principal operator Execujet. 

Nigeria-based fractional ownership business ANAP Jets is making its debut as an AfBAA event sponsor as it takes an Emerald sponsorship, whilst Universal Aviation and Weather Inc., which has been a consistent supporter of the Association, takes Ruby sponsorship. The association has also announced Ethiopian Airlines as the confirmed Official Carrier of the conference.

The new look conference will incorporate international speakers from a wide range of industries.  Alongside regular maintenance, finance and training topics, new and varied panels will cover subjects including the use of aircraft in anti-poaching, lessons to be learned from commercial aviation, flying humanitarian missions in Africa and the pilot’s experience. An Innovation Zone section will look at developing trends. 

AfBAA has also added a new sparkle to the event through the creation of a five-tier gemstone sponsorship structure with an amber category leading the way, followed by emerald, sapphire, ruby and diamond options. “We always try and be inclusive at AfBAA which is why we have introduced a cost-effective sponsorship in our amber option,” explains AfBAA CEO Rady Fahmy. “We would like to encourage the small to medium size businesses to get involved. As an event sponsor it helps their visibility, and enables them to be seen in a dedicated aviation environment by fellow professionals. We hope our nod to South Africa’s gemstone industry will appeal to a whole new set of sponsors,” he adds.