IF EVER there was a case of gross waste of public money coupled with an outright failure to comply with “cast in stone” legislation and an attitude of “we don’t care about anyone else as long as we are all right”, then the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), must surely take the cake over its proposed handling of the future of the Durban International Airport (DIA).
It has stated on more than one occasion that it is going to decommission this airport in favour of the new King Shaka Airport once the World Cup Soccer tournament is over. It had originally planned to close DIA immediately after the opening of King Shaka on May 1, but luckily the SA Air Force pointed out that DIA was needed to handle fighter aircraft movements during the World Cup which could not be accommodated at King Shaka.
But a strong rumour persists that as soon as DIA is decommissioned, ACSA “will send in the bulldozers to rip up the runway” and presumably demolish all the existing buildings to boot. ACSA may well deny the rumour, but there is no smoke without fire.
The company is seemingly completely overlooking the millions and millions of rand of public money it has spent on upgrading Durban International since it was given the facility on a plate and at no cost when ACSA was first established. True, it turned the airport into a modern, very workable and pleasant facility capable of handling all but perhaps the Airbus A380 today. Widening and strengthening the runway and some adjustments to the terminals to cope with this aircraft would cost a whole lot less to do than the R7,4-billion ACSA, at the obvious behest of some politicians, has already spent on the new King Shaka Airport, which none of the international airlines, and most of the local ones, did not want anyway. Then take the millions it spent on the new parkade at DIA. A cynical question one could ask here is whether this parkade was built for the convenience of passengers, or in the hope that it would encourage vehicle manufacturer, Toyota, to buy the airport for its use after the planned decommissioning?
But Toyota apparently does not want the property, at least not at the price ACSA is quoting. Neither does Transnet, which ACSA was hoping would be a second option. So ACSA’s marketing strategy for the sale of DIA has backfired. But despite this, it has turned down a joint offer made by South Africa’s largest private airline company, Comair, and the largest private airport in the country, Lanseria International Airport, to buy the property. ACSA said at the time that it did not want DIA to be used by airlines in competition to King Shaka.
So, as things stand at present, DIA appears to be doomed, at least if ACSA has its way. But there are many other issues tangled in this web of intrigue. It is known, for example, that an American group is keen to invest in DIA to reopen it as a combination of an “aerospace village” and a general aviation “City Airport”. This move follows a suggestion first made by the Commercial Aviation Association of Southern Africa (CAASA) that the airport remains open to accommodate all the general aviation operators at Durban’s current general aviation airport, Virginia, once their leases expire in 2012.
Not only would this overcome a major problem general aviation is facing over the future of Virginia, but it would also solve the problem facing both the South African Air Force and the South African Police Service’s Air Wing, both of which face eviction with the closure of DIA. ACSA has “kindly” offered sites at King Shaka to both services, overlooking the fact that neither has planned for such a move nor can afford the millions it would cost to relocate.
This means that the SAAF would have to move its helicopter operations to another of its bases (Bloemfontein has been mentioned), with the same applying to the SAPS. No one in ACSA or in the Department of Transport, ACSA’s sole shareholder, seems to be the least bit concerned that, should the SAAF move its helicopters to Bloemfontein, it will seriously impair the country’s ability to meet its international obligations to provide an effective search and rescue service as required by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). If ACSA and the DoT are considering the issue, then they are keeping very quiet about it.
As mentioned above, ACSA has at least offered alternative accommodation to the SAAF and SAPS at King Shaka. Not so general aviation, despite the fact that the new airport has taken over Virginia’s general flying area which it has used for more than 43 years and that this has already seriously affected at least three major helicopter training institutions. To the contrary, ACSA has flatly stated that there will be no general aviation operations allowed at the airport (apart from aircraft landing there for customs and immigration clearances).
This despite the fact that the legislation which governed ACSA’s formation in the first place, contains a specific clause that the parastatal cannot “unduly discriminate” against any user wanting to be based at, or use, any or its airports anywhere in the country – and that includes general aviation. This clause is flatly and with an obvious great degree of determination, ignored by ACSA.
The fact remains, and even ACSA cannot deny this, that a fully-equipped and functional facility is available to solve many of the serious questions facing several sectors of the aviation industry, much needed by the city and its surrounds to boost tourism, provide jobs and generally follow the route taken by so many metropolitan areas overseas of having a main and a subsidiary airport to meet the needs of all.
It already has it, so why throw it away? If it does not want it, let someone else have it, but do not destroy it! One suspects that ACSA’S acute fear of competition lies behind all this. Is the company scared that if competition is allowed, King Shaka will become the “white elephant” about which so many have warned?
Decommissioning DIA will be a high price for Durban, its peoples and the country’s aviation industry to pay as its loss would destroy the major role it could play in the future development of the area and the industry.
Then, of course, there is the question of actually destroying the infrastructure that will cost many more millions the currently cash-strapped ACSA certainly cannot afford. In the end it will be another burden for the taxpayer to bear.
All in all, to demolish a perfectly good airport which is still needed by the aviation industry and, indeed, the public, is a luxury that South Africa cannot afford.
The bottom line is: STOP ACSA DESTROYING DIA.
