Getting rich in the world’s poorest continent (airline regulation in Africa)

On the 9-hour flight back from Uganda to London, I was seated next to a Ugandan guy who smelled like he hadn’t washed his armpits in about a week. Every other seat on the Boeing 767 was taken and the stench in my row served as powerful motivation to hang out with the flight attendants in the back of the plane. They told me that Africa was British Airways’s most profitable region, with every flight tending to be full at prices 2-4X per passenger-mile what people pay for trips within Europe and the U.S. What’s the secret? Government regulation. It would be illegal for JetBlue, Ryan Air, or Southwest Airlines to operate flights from Africa to Western Europe or the U.S. The established carriers are shielded from competition and price accordingly.