eli5 how do countries with crumbling infrastructure afford to properly train and field pilots and airliners?

Question

Ethiopia, for instance. Most of these airlines have remarkably good safety records considering how loosely regulated I would assume they are.

In: Economics

Answer 1

First off: there are less flights per capita than a wealthy country because most people are too poor to fly so they need less pilots than you might think. Second: a lot of those countries rely on tourism for a significant portion of their economy so having a good flight safety record is an investment that pays dividens. It’s also a relatively cheap infrastructure investment compared to maintaining roads and power grids for millions of people. The airlines are mostly private so they pay to maintain their own planes.