Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) has assured air passengers that they will enjoy a seamless experience at its airports during the peak festive season, with scheduled flights taking off on time after overcoming jet fuel challenges.
This comes as passenger volumes have recorded an overall recovery of pre-Covid numbers of 70% for the year to date in South Africa, driven by domestic travel at 72% while international travel accounted for 66% by end of October.
Acsa CEO Mpumi Mpofu yesterday said that jet fuel supply challenges were a thing of the past after various factors had resulted in supply challenges, specifically at OR Tambo and Cape Town international airports.
Stock levels at these airports dropped to alarmingly low levels at times during the year, as the supply chain was hit by flooding in KwaZulu-Natal, a shipment delayed by high seas en route to Cape Town, as well as the shortage of oil refineries in the country.
However, Mpofu said they had been working hard behind the scenes to resolve jet fuel supply constraints and ensure that all airports were sufficiently stocked.
“We largely experienced this problem which came as a result of interruptions, flooding in KwaZulu-Natal, and also a ship that was caught in high seas on route to Cape Town; most of these interruptions resulted in jet fuel shortages,” Mpofu said.
“We are happy to announce that fuel stock-levels have stabilised and that all our airports have sufficient stock to comfortably meet the current peak season demand. We do not foresee any further problems with the availability of jet fuel.
“We have also adopted a revised jet fuel strategy, allowing us to mitigate all of those future risks to jet fuel supply, and that includes the vision of our licence conditions and ownership, so that Acsa itself is finally held responsible for jet fuel stocks.”
Mpofu added that airport passenger traffic had not suffered due to the collapse of Comair, as other airlines were able to mitigate the situation, and fill in the gap.
According to data from the Airports Council International (ACI), global air travel is expected to fully recover from Covid-19-induced losses in 2024.
ACI data showed that demand for air travel continued to be strong, despite heightened macro-economic risks with promising forecasts in the second half of 2022.
This positive performance is attributed to fewer health and travel restrictions in many European and African countries, and the Americas, leaving room for renewed industry optimism.
Global domestic passenger traffic is expected to reach its 2019 levels in late 2023, with full-year 2023 traffic on par with the 2019 level while global international passenger traffic would require another year to recover fully, reaching 2019 levels in the second half of 2024.
Acsa’s group executive for airport operations management, Terence Delomoney, said Acsa’s busiest days were expected to be December 15 and January 6 for departures and arrivals at its key hubs.
Delomoney said their integrated peak season plan would ensure that the airports were adequately resourced, positioned and capacitated to handle the huge volumes of passengers.
“Through this plan, every stakeholder is aware of what to expect and what is expected of them in terms of resource planning for our busiest time,” he said.
“A main focus area of the plan is the availability of key services and infrastructure across the airports to ensure that these operate reliably and efficiently.
“We have focused on upgrading and expanding our parking infrastructure, as equipment had reached the end of life, and are currently replacing old equipment with new parking payment machines to address areas of congestion and provide a more efficient and user-friendly parking procedure at our airports,” Delomoney said.
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