SAA bows to pressure from Western Cape exporters

FTW plays its role in altered schedule, writes Ray Smuts SAA CARGO has bowed to incessant "cage rattling" by altering part of its freight schedule to accommodate lobster and abalone exporters in the Western Cape. Martin Upton, SAA Cargo's Cape area sales representative, concedes that the new arrangement is due in part to a drive spearheaded by Monwabisi Kalawe, general manager of Cape Town International Airport; indeed the facilitating role of the ACSA organisation. "We would not have changed the schedule otherwise." SAA has for several years employed two Boeing 737-200 freighter aircraft on a daily service out of Cape Town, the first departing for Johannesburg at 21:00 and the other at 02:45. This latter flight was changed to a 05:00 departure last month to allow lobster and abalone exporters better timing out of Johannesburg for international destinations. These freighters have a 13-ton capacity and unlike their 737-800 Ôsisters' carrying passengers and manually-loaded belly cargo, can take unitised cargo on the upper deck. They are currently running to about 60% capacity. In his first interview with this correspondent in March, newly-arrived Kalawe asked FTW to "facilitate" a meeting between himself and Cape Town's freight community, realising full well that income is not derived from passengers alone. This took place on April 19 under a cloud of industry scepticism as to what such a forum could possibly hope to achieve, one argument being that ACSA ran airports so how could they possibly impact on SAA's way of doing business? Kalawe undertook to invite SAA Cargo's chief Vincent Raseroka to Cape Town to address a meeting of all concerned parties in the Western Cape in May but this did not materialise. (Raseroka injured a leg in a domestic accident that same month). June meeting He did however attend a June meeting organised by I&J where the needs of the lobster and abalone freighters were made clear. Subsequent meetings have also taken place with other role players like the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the South African Association of Freight Forwarders. Gavin Cooper, chairman of SAAFF in the Western Cape, believes the dispensation for lobster and abalone producers has come about largely due to their persistence. "They shouted the loudest but unfortunately the rest of Cape Town freighters are not working as a community on this whole issue." He quotes as an example the luke warm response to a SAAFF advisory about Hydro Air, a Pretoria-based company, expressing an interest in doing business in the Cape. "The company is still keen but the problem is we are dealing with an industry that is fragmented and not wanting to act cohesively." Wheel greased As to SAA Cargo's rearranged schedule, Cooper commented: "Clearly, what happened is that the squeaky wheel got the grease at last. There is no doubt that although Kalawe and others were prime movers and shakers in rattling the cage, things got to the stage where Raseroka said Ôlet's go to Cape Town and shut these people up.' What will hopefully be a plus for freighters and passengers alike is the recent structuring of an ACSA business and marketing development division with the primary objective of being a pro-active role-player for the development of the organisation's core business, passengers and cargo.