Gauteng’s airports are taking off

Gauteng has many airports, including the continent’s biggest and busiest in OR Tambo International Airport. But plans are now in place to use the province’s airports as tools to boost the regional economy and support industrial policy.

Apart from OR Tambo International Airport, located to the east of Johannesburg in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, Gauteng has the following regional airports:
• Rand Airport in Germiston in the south-east
• Grand Central Airport in Midrand, halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria
• Lanseria Airport to the north-west of Johannesburg
• Wonderboom Airport in Pretoria north
• Waterkloof Air Force base south of Pretoria
• Pretoria Central Heliport

Brakpan and Springs are among several towns that have good airfi elds. Nigel is home to the Dunnottar Airport and an aeronautical museum. The most ambitious of the plans being mooted for Gauteng’s airports is the concept put forward by the province’s premier and the metropolitan municipality of Ekurhuleni to build an ‘aerotropolis’ that would link OR Tambo and Lanseria. This plan is being pursued in the context of the awarding of a licence to the OR Tambo Industrial Development Zone (ORTIDZ), the third such licence to be issued in South Africa.

Within the zone, and as part of the aerotropolis, manufacturing will be encouraged as part of the national drive to beneficiate the country’s minerals and raw materials. As part of its drive to establish the aerotropolis, the city of Ekurhuleni will host Airport Cities: World Conference and Exhibition in 2013. Ekurhuleni is hoping not only to boost its already impressive manufacturing capacity by building more infrastructure and freight hubs, but it intends the aerotropolis to play a role in helping to consolidate the integration of the nine town councils that went into making up the metropole.

Another development, which is designed to exploit the proximity of the property to an airport is under construction on the land that surrounds Lanseria Airport. This 912-hectare site will be known as Cradle City and will be a mixed-use development that includes warehousing. The developers of the Cradle City project, Amari Land, expect the number of departing passengers at Lanseria to grow to seven million annually by 2017 and that scheduled flights will increase from 1 100 to closer to 4 000. Freight tonnage is expected to reach 20 000 tons by 2017, up from the current total of 5 000 tons.

Lanseria is spending R200-million on a new runway, a new terminal and extended parking facilities. This is in the context of a growing number of airlines choosing to fly into the regional facility. Budget airline kulula (Cape Town, Durban, Gaborone and Maputo) has been joined by Mango (Cape Town), Comair (Maputo, Gaborone) as airlines offering their services out of Lanseria.

The new airline being planned by the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) will probably use the airport as well. Santaco will lease aeroplanes and staff from the charter company already operating out of Lanseria, Airquarius. National Airways Corporation is another major charter company with its headquarters at Lanseria. It has 20 aircraft in its VIP fleet and a helicopter base at Grand Central Airport. Charter company CFA is based at Grand Central while other charter companies at Lanseria include ExecuJet, Fair Aviation and King Air Charter.

A major development is under way at the Waterkloof Air Force base south of Pretoria. A budget of R1.2-billion has been allocated to the rebuilding of the facility’s secondary runway, which should be ready for operations in 2012. The main runway at the base can accommodate the Airbus A380 and the airport is being considered as a future base for freight traffic.

Wonderboom Airport celebrated its 75th year in 2011 with a spectacular airshow. The airport is owned by the Tshwane Municipality and has two runways, one of which is 1 828m in length. The airport can accommodate large aircraft but currently caters to charter flights and helicopters.

Grand Central Airport hosts about 12 000 aircraft movements per month and will be offering a shuttle service to the Gautrain station in Midrand once the station is operational. Grand Central caters exclusively to light aircraft and has several flying schools on its premises.

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