MBABANE – Swaziland government’s hopes that air traffic to the landlocked country would increase after R2.5 billion was spent building a new airport have been hit hard by reality. Four years since opening, not a single new airline has chosen to utilise the King Mswati III International Airport (KM3). The only air carrier flying in and out of KM3 is Swaziland Airlink, with one route to Johannesburg. Other airlines have stayed away for the same reasons that sceptics of the airport project raised a decade ago – a small local market, no air connections to other destinations and KM3’s proximity to larger established airports in Durban, Maputo and Johannesburg. Government’s answer, to open new routes to southern African destinations by creating a new airline, also never got off the ground. A 29-year-old R20-million Boeing 737-300 was leased but never flown, and after paying R750 000 in monthly salaries to staff, the experiment folded in April 2017. If passenger service never took off, a new era in airfreight opportunities was nonetheless promised. However, the goal of raising airfreight volumes was foiled by the deterioration of the Swaziland economy and the inexpensive alternative of using road freight courier services, which can make the trip from the Matsapha Industrial Estate to Gauteng in about the same time as using KMIII, located about an hour east of Manzini. Consequently, construction of warehouses, cold storage facilities and other promised airfreight infrastructure had been put on hold, Makhosazane Simelane, assistant director of marketing for the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority that manages KM3, told FTW. There will be no immediate construction of any facilities dedicated to airfreight, he said.
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