CAPE TOWN International Airport’s g.m. Monwabisi Kalawe last week met key
Cape airfreight players to thrash out the problems surrounding capacity
shortfalls in the Mother City. The meeting was facilitated by
FTW’s Cape Town correspondent Ray Smuts who filed these reports.
ACSA and forwarders thrash out the problems
SAA’s decision to replace its Airbus-300 fleet with the Boeing 737-800 on domestic and regional routes is in the minds of many - not the least the Cape Town freight industry.
At the heart of the problem from a Cape Town perspective is SAA’s cargo capacity of only around 350 tons a week between the Mother City and Johannesburg.
However, only 80 or so tons can be uplifted on unitised equipment - that is pallets and containers - the balance of which has to be handloaded into the 737-800.
SAA says the per flight cargo capacity between the two cities ranges from 2,5 to 3 tons per flight but here lies the dilemma for freight forwarders - cargo is metrically-restricted to 75cm in height, 1,2 metres in width and about 80kg in weight.
As Jason Schouw of JJ’s Airfreight points out: “Prior to the 737s there was an average of up to a dozen wide-bodied Airbuses a day between Cape Town and Johannesburg. That means you are looking at a total of 300 unitised positions which equates to around 920 tons a week, a difference of 570 tons.
When I interviewed Monwabisi Kalawe, new general manager of Cape Town International Airport, on March 19 I thought it opportune to convey the concerns of the city’s freight community, this despite some murmurings that it would serve about as much purpose as Portnet trying to tell Safmarine to change the colour of its ships.
Kalawe is astute enough to realise there is more in it for the Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) than airline passenger revenue alone and immediately responded positively by asking FTW to facilitate a meeting between himself and representatives of the freight industry.
That meeting took place last Thursday in ACSA’s spanking new boardroom, attended by a small but representative gathering who spoke frankly and forcefully about the plight in which they find themselves.
They were:
l GAVIN COOPER, chairman of the Western Cape branch of the South African Association of Freight Forwarders and m.d of Seair Freight (sea and air freight forwarding)
l JASON SCHOUW, director of
JJ’s Airfreight (perishables forwarding)
l SHONA GODKIN, sales manager of United Parcel Service (express couriers)
l WAYNE LAZO, director of Megafreight Services (general cargo forwarding)
l RON MEREDITH, export director of UTI (general cargo forwarding)
l GORDON HALL, regional manager Kintetsu World Express (general cargo and perishables forwarding)
l MONWABISI KALAWE, general manager Cape Town International Airport
l RAY SMUTS, Cape correspondent FTW
It was, as Kalawe was to admit later to this writer, “ a real eye-opener”. So much so that he undertook to those present to convene in Cape Town at the
earliest opportunity a meeting between the upper echelons of SAA - the airline’s new cargo chief Vincent Raseroka included - and all the role players who have the interests of Cape Town and indeed the Western Cape at heart.
