Cape Town International: best in class globally – IATA
ACSA Cape Town International Airport has been named the best airport of its size in the world in the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) annual poll.
Known as AETRA, the 2003 global monitor put Cape Town ahead of Athens, Vancouver, Oslo and Johannesburg, all airports that handle between five and 15 million passengers a year.
Cape Town was also named the most improved airport in terms of overall customer satisfaction, ahead of Brussels, Halifax, Johannesburg and Minneapolis.
The AETRA award is the latest in a string of accolades. It has been rated the best airport in Africa at the World Travel Awards for six consecutive years; African Aviation Magazine named it Airport of the Year in 2002.
ACSA Cape Town International previously won the award for best airport of its size in the first quarter of 2003, but no South African airport has ever won the annual award.
"To put this in perspective, in the regional award which includes both Africa and the Middle East, we came second after Dubai. And Dubai was also named the overall winner, being judged best airport in the world across all size categories," said Monwabisi Kalawe, ACSA Cape Town International General Manager).
The news comes as Cape Town International celebrated another record year, comfortably exceeding the five million passengers it handled during the 2002/2003 financial year. Over 5, 46 million passengers arrived or departed from Cape Town International between April 2003 and March 2004.
"Not only have we handled more passengers than ever before, but we've done it better than any other airport of our size in the world."
Despite this he says that ACSA Cape Town International cannot afford to rest on its laurels.
"We know that a modern, efficient, world-class airport is critical to the socio-economic development of a province so hugely dependent on tourism. This is an acknowledgement that we're on the right track, but there's still a great deal of work to do."
ACSA has committed over R1 billion to infrastructure development at Cape Town International until 2017 and has plans in place to meet projected passenger demand until 2050.
In the past three years it has opened two new international terminals and is now turning its attention to expanding and upgrading the overburdened domestic terminals.
Given that the terminals cannot be closed during construction, ACSA opted for a two-phase approach. The first part, a R10-million interim expansion project, completed in June 2003, eased congestion by expanding the departure terminal by 10 metres.
The second phase, an extensive R320 million overhaul, is due to start shortly. This three-year project will more than double existing capacity and enable Cape Town International to handle more than half a million domestic passengers a month.
"The plan is then to link the domestic and international terminals through a central passenger processing unit. This will enable us to manage check-in and transfers far more efficiently, process more passengers and better utilise the terminal infrastructure," explains Kalawe.
More passengers mean more aircraft and ACSA Cape Town International has started work on six new aircraft stands. These will help to meet the current requirements of the highly competitive low-cost carriers, some future domestic demand and will also be able to accommodate super-large, long-haul aircraft, including the new Airbus A340-600s.
The new aircraft parking aprons are the first part of a long-term plan to build satellite mid-field terminals. These new terminals will be situated opposite the existing terminals and linked by underground passages, equipped with travellators. This will speed up passenger boarding and disembarkation.
A second runway is a key aspect of the mid-field construction programme. Planned for completion in 2015, this R200 million programme will prevent air traffic congestion and provide sufficient take-off and landing slots to meet projected demand until 2050.
But Kalawe says that airside development must go hand in hand with expanding landside infrastructure.
"There's no doubt that the growth in both domestic and international passenger numbers over the past two years have strained our parking system. While we reconfigured our existing parking to make more space, this hasn't been sufficient, so now we're building more bays to ease congestion until the planned multi-storey car park is completed."
An additional 850 parking bays are nearing completion and these will help ease congestion until first phase of a 2000 multi-storey parkade is complete. Construction is scheduled to start in the new financial year (April - March). The facility is expected to be operational by March 2005.
International & Regional Arrivals 2003/2004 vs 2002/2003
The AETRA award is the latest in a string of accolades. It has been rated the best airport in Africa at the World Travel Awards for six consecutive years; African Aviation Magazine named it Airport of the Year in 2002.
