Port Elizabeth Airport goes international

THE Port Elizabeth airport is being given international status from April 1.
This will make it one of only ten ports of entry into South Africa, according to Airports Company (ACSA) managing director Dirk Ackerman.
Making the announcement at a Port Elizabeth workshop with representatives from business, industry, commerce and local business, recently Ackerman challenged the local community to provide sufficient business to make it viable to invest R50-m in lengthening the runway to take 747-sized aircraft.
As it is, he said, the existing runway could cater for 80 % of freight and passenger charter aircraft currently in use. He challenged the Port Elizabeth tourism industry to package a product to persuade airlines to bring in tourists.
Responding to pressure from business delegates to commit ACSA to the lengthening of the runway, he said we really want to build that runway, but we need to do it in partnership with business and the tourist industry.
The same conditions applied to freight as to tourists - once sufficient demand had built up ACSA would lengthen the runway. The company was spending R1-million on fencing the new runway area and beginning the clearance of the thick bush in the area.
This was the most time-consuming part of the project as the area - which is known as driftsands - consisted of loose thick sand. Clearance would have to be done in strips, which would then have to be grassed and stabilised before more bush could be removed.
Once this had been done it could, he said, take around nine months to complete the runway extensions.
In the short term ACSA was giving operators the undertaking that it would waive all fees at Johannesburg International if operators wanting to fly international flights into Port Elizabeth were forced to stop over in Johannesburg because of constraints imposed by the relatively short runway.
The granting of official international status to Port Elizabeth airport will entail a number of improvements and modifications to the airport building to accommodate customs and to meet other requirements by the customs department.
We have a team arriving next week who will work with customs to ensure that the licence is issued on April 1, said Ackerman.
International flights would initially be handled on an ad-hoc basis depending on need, he said.
It is speculated that Brussels-based Sabena could be the first airline to offer a direct service into Port Elizabeth International. Its partner, Nationwide, is due to resume services to Port Elizabeth soon.
By Ed Richardson