Port Elizabeth, which is South Africa’s fourth-largest metro, will not have a functioning international airport for the next decade. This is stated in the 2013/2014 annual report of the Airports Company of South Africa (Acsa), which says “the six regional airports operate mainly as feeder airports for the three international airports in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. “No infrastructural development is planned for the regional airports during the next ten years (2015- 2025)”. This means that the nominal international airports of Upington, Bram Fischer (Bloemfontein) and Port Elizabeth will not have the capacity to handle widebodied or long-range aircraft for more than 10 years. The Port Elizabeth runway is too short to accommodate largebodied aircraft. Additional land for the extension was provided to Acsa by the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality nearly 20 years ago. Plans for increasing airfreight and developing airfreight-related businesses in Port Elizabeth and the other airports will remain grounded by the decision not to invest. It will, however, give impetus to plans by the Coega Development Corporation to develop a cargo airport in the Coega Industrial Development Zone. The other two airports left out of Acsa’s investment plans are Kimberley, East London and George.
