AIA overcomes traffic rights problems
ALAN PEAT
WHAT MOST people don’t realise is that some 25% of South Africa’s total trade in value terms goes by air, according to Pat Corbin, director and major SA shareholder of the now 30-year-old charter air carrier, African International Airways (AIA).
And a lot of this is in-and-out of the African continent, he added. He does however warn that African destinations suffer from a surfeit of government protection for their own airlines, “many of which go bust anyway,” Corbin added.
But African International has the experience to overcome the problem of African traffic rights, he said, and has been into 82 airports all round Africa in its operating lifespan.
The airline has a fleet of four, 44-ton capacity DC8 aircraft, fitting neatly in size between the Boeing 737 and the DC10/Boeing 747, Corbin added, and ideal for carrying everything from livestock to banknote paper.
These are operating globally, but two of them are positioned in Johannesburg.
“Our two Johannesburg-based aircraft are here to develop the African and islands market,” Corbin told FTW.
“We are also flying sub-services for other scheduled airlines, like Air Mauritius.”
The airline flies a huge variety of cargoes from its SA base, he added. “Taking empty cans to Mauritius, ostriches to the Ukraine, and huge volumes of livestock to a large number of destination countries, for example,” Corbin said.
“We’ve got an aircraft literally going round the world as I speak. It has just flown a cargo of mining equipment from Chile to Auckland in New Zealand, and is now just about to fly a cargo out of Brisbane in Australia.”
You need the international connections, according to Corbin. “And these we’ve got. It’s an essential advantage, as most air cargoes are administered from Europe.”
Another thing that is not realised, is that there is tremendous potential in the airfreight into Africa market.
“One of the things that we’ve got to get through to people is that airfreight services such as ours are facilitators of trade,” he said.
“It should also be appreciated that the potential at Johannesburg International Airport (JIA) is almost untouched.”
