Sceptics discount 2010 completion date

Doubt over projected volumes DESPITE THE enthusiasm of Dube Tradeport's proponents, the Durban freight industry is not impressed. Seven senior members of the forwarding and the road transport sectors told FTW that they knew little more about the scheme than the location of La Mercy, the site of the new airport. And that, added a road transporter, is about six times as far to travel as the current airport – considerably adding to the transport cost and making staff travel difficult. Most of the current airfreight employees live south of Durban, close to the current DIA. There would be little planning about an airport presence, we were told, until the companies actually saw something physically there and had firm details of what services were actually operating. One prominent freight industry source commented: “Do you go to a stadium if there are no players on the field?” It’s one of those “Catch 22” conditions as well, said another contact, where if there is no cargo, there are no aircraft – and with no aircraft there is no cargo. And most of our contacts rejected the idea of constructing the airport and having it fully up-and-running by 2010. “I’ve never heard of an airport anywhere in the world being completely built in two-and-a-half years,” said our source – reflecting others’ comments along the same lines. “Dube Tradeport said the schedule was “tight”, but I’d describe it as impossible,” he added. There was also scepticism about the figures that DTP had used in calculating the potential. “They were compiled by Kaiser Associates (commissioned to conduct the study of KZN’s airfreight export volumes) in 2003, using 2002 figures,” he said. “That means they are already six years out of date, and the airfreight market has considerably changed since then.” “Then, the DIA was very attractive, and a lot of export traffic was going airfreight. “But now, with no widebody, long-haul aircraft calling in Durban, it’s nowhere near so attractive.” The idea certainly goes back a long way. One contact tells the tale, now a trifle apocryphal, that, 30 years ago he was actually interviewed by interior design consultants for the proposed airport, who asked him: “What colour of carpet tiles would you want to have for your office at La Mercy?” And in the last five years, he added, the freight industry has been told nothing, nor has anything been done at the airport site. “I had a meeting with Erskine in 2003 to discuss airfreight and its needs at the proposed new La Mercy Airport,” he said. “The request at the end of the meeting was that DTP would like to involve a greater number of agents in a general discussion – or, alternatively, in individual meetings. “But this went no further, and left the industry with nothing to react to.” And this was confirmed at a meeting last week between freight forwarder members of Saaff, airline SAA and cargo handling companies, Swissport and ACR. “Only SAA acknowledged that they had been asked for their space requirements, but only by the Airports Company of SA (Acsa) – not their partners in the airport venture, Dube Tradeport.” Our FTW contacts all agreed that, YES, the industry feels there is a definite need for a freight park for them to use at the new facility.” “But, nobody can make a move until somebody asks for our requirements, and puts them in place. “Until that happens, the whole thing just remains a white elephant.”