SAA gears up to play its part in regional growth

Despite the global recession, airfreight volumes on the continent have held up relatively well – and that’s largely because they’re driven by basic commodities. “They’re goods that have to move,” says SAA Cargo regional manager: Africa, Dixon Nkomo. Markets affected most negatively by the recession were Harare and Lusaka, said Nkomo, which are primarily driven by the perishable sector. “With most of their exports bound for Europe, where demand has diminished, production levels were down and this was reflected in our volumes. “The same is true of Mauritius which traditionally imported raw material from Madagascar for production and re-export to the US. But because of the political instability in Madagascar the raw material wasn’t flowing and that affected our volumes enormously.” On the positive side there’s been significant growth in Kinshasa, in and out of Lagos, and into Harare and Maputo, primarily driven by traders buying in the East and feeding those destinations. Airfreight manifests essentially mirror the activity on the continent, and with a lot of SA mining houses expanding into Africa and specifically West Africa, there’s been a lot of gold bullion moving between Bamako and Lagos coming into Johannesburg to be refined, says Nkomo. “We’re also seeing big retailers expanding into Africa importing a lot of the fresh produce out of South Africa.” Much of this is moving into Luanda and key markets where big retailers have opened up, he added. For SAA Cargo expansion plans are very much on the radar screen. “In the past we didn’t have widebody aircraft to serve markets like Luanda, where capacity was at a premium. “We have now secured the right equipment and have been flying a freighter there three times a week since August.” Hubbing is also very much a part of the airline’s future expansion plans, and the idea is to set up some sort of partnership arrangement in Dakar, Lagos or Accra to feed into West Africa. “Those are the two key focus areas in terms of our expansion strategy into Africa.” But while the opportunities are there for the taking, it’s not a market without challenges. And these relate mainly to the lack of infrastructure in Africa. “We have certain aviation security standards that we have to meet in terms of ground handling and security facilities – and in most cases these require investment. “On top of that most African countries are net importers, which creates challenge in terms of profitable rotation in total. “In addition not all countries on the continent have adopted an open skies policy and that means you may not always be able to operate optimally because you would like to have the ability to have fourth, fifth and sixth freedoms in all states.” But despite the challenges, SAA Cargo is confident that the market will continue to grow. “Building new roads is a longterm investment and we believe that development will take some time – until then airfreight will continue to be the only transport option and SAA will be ready to fulfil its Africa commitments which are likely to grow significantly once the world emerges from recession.”