Airport developer calls for more ports of entry Kevin Mayhew SOUTH AFRICA’S cargo handling infrastructure offers world class facilities but a capacity shortage is driving up prices and preventing on-time delivery. The area manager for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) office of Airport Consulting Vienna (ACV), Andreas Jäger, believes that the authorities have not been quick enough to provide solutions that meet world trends. Vienna-based ACV is a worldwide key airport developer and operator. It introduced the first privatisation of a government owned airport worldwide – Vienna International Airport – and is presently involved in a number of countries, including several in Africa. “South Africa is bound by its bilateral agreements which dictate the ports of entry as Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg. However, there is no meaningful quantity of cargo entering through Durban or Cape Town because of the limited number of flights. Therefore, the bulk of cargo enters through Johannesburg International Airport (JIA) with its excellent facilities, but it is overwhelmed,” Johannesburg-based Jäger explained. The only solution is to introduce open skies and accept more ports of entry to create opportunities for cargo to be routed by air to more points. In the case of Mpumalanga, he says that there is no reason why it cannot become a key tourism entry hub. This will provide freight opportunities into and out of the country. “Worldwide 85% of freight is on belly aircraft, so freight opportunities follow passenger destinations. By taking advantage of the vast attraction for tourists to South Africa from countries worldwide, airlines could direct their destinations to other entry points and take the load off Johannesburg. More optimistically, he said there appeared to be a shift of thinking by the authorities and already they had relaxed at least one bilateral agreement in principle to include all ports of entry.
