The mayor of the City of Tshwane, Solly Msimanga, last week announced his municipality’s intention to change Wonderboom National Airport’s status to international. The Mayor hopes the new status would mean the airport could expand operations to include international passenger traffic and create a cargo and logistics hub.
Acting spokesperson for the mayor, Matthew Gerstner, told eTNW that the municipality was still in the early stages of making the change. “The Mayor has announced his intention and now he will start consulting the right people and consulting the right arms of government.”
Airlink CEO, Rodger Foster, said the airline had no immediate aspirations to link Wonderboom with any of its current destinations with neighbouring countries. “But should it become international, those things would obviously become a consideration.”
According to Foster, the airport would not need to undergo a lot of major upgrades to meet the required standards for international status. “There would be some minor alterations, I would think, in the terminal infrastructure and it would mainly be to accommodate customs and immigration.”
The airport once had international status, but due to the inadequate customs and immigration controls at the time, the status was withdrawn.
