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last looked at O.R. Tambo International Airport in South Africa’s Gauteng province one year ago, covering the airport’s operations and the planned “aerotropolis” development surrounding it. One returns to see year on, what progress has been made.
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.R. Tambo International Airport is Africa’s largest and busiest airport, carrying 20 million passengers per year and more than 50% of South Africa’s total air traffic. Its last major expansion project was in 2009-2010 during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, with the opening of a new Central Terminal building. In 2015, The Ekurhuleni municipality announced plans to expand the airport into an “aerotropolis” as part of a massive program of urban infrastructure expansion and development. The plan calls
“In total, Gauteng Roads and Transport has been allocated R6.8 billion for transport improvements.
for around R300 billion to be allocated to turning the airport and its surrounding areas into a new CBD with shops, businesses and transportation infrastructure. The Gautrain network will be expanded to cover the surrounding area with a new network added onto the current O.R. Tambo/Sandton line, while new road infrastructure will also be added including South Africa’s first new road highway in forty years, the PWV15, which will reduce congestion and connect the Aerotropolis to other parts of South Africa. In total, Gauteng Roads and Transport has been allocated R6.8 billion for transport improvements. Once the aerotropolis project is complete it will allow O.R. Tambo to run and profit from air freight and cargo projects as well as its currently profitable passenger aircraft services. It will also help the region’s existing industrial base distribute its products faster and more widely without increasing road congestion, and create opportunities that will lead to rapid growth and redevelopment among its communities. The integrated infrastructure development will also include storm drains and IT network infrastructure to bring fibre internet to the region.
Growth of the aerotropolis
The concept of an aerotropolis sounds like 20th-century retro
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“In its modern form, however, the aerotropolis is an economic and commercial powerhouse, helping to provide just-intime goods and services to the surrounding communities.
goods that can be economically delivered by air freight.
futurism, calling back to utopian concepts of sky cities and airplane ownership that never took off in the modern day. In its modern form, however, the aerotropolis is an economic and commercial powerhouse, helping to provide just-intime goods and services to surrounding communities. Thanks to the fact that they provide a good transport link to the outside world and see large amounts of traffic from people passing through, many airports have developed shops,
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commercial buildings and storage warehouses around them as a natural consequence. In modern cities, airports have become major centres for urban economic activity and competitiveness, and aerotropolis programmes take advantage of this by providing optimal conditions for economic growth. They’re about more than just building shops and light industrial parks around airports – a true aerotropolis has transport links, connections to local and communities and shops selling a wide variety of international
There are some concerns that an aerotropolis is not a suitable development for a developing economy, given that the design relies on large amounts of spending from the airport authorities and the local government while also requiring large numbers of wealthy customers able to afford to travel to the aerotropolis and shop there. The Ekurhuleni aerotropolis’ planners, however, see advantages to such large-scale projects in developing countries, pointing out that one of the reasons many airports and surrounding areas tend to suffer from developmental bottlenecks and lack of capacity later on is a lack of early strategic planning. While O.R. Tambo is already a well-established airport, it has some nearby greenfield sites that can provide space to grow in the future, and is in a somewhat
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underdeveloped area ripe for expansion.
“If properly implemented, the Ekurhuleni/O.R. Tambo aerotropolis concept has the potential to bring solid economic benefits to the surrounding area and help support Gauteng’s already solid industrial and economic base.
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If properly implemented, the Ekurhuleni/O.R. Tambo aerotropolis concept has the potential to bring solid economic benefits to the surrounding area and help support Gauteng’s already solid industrial and economic base. The city’s mayor Mzwandile Masina was optimistic in a 2016 interview about the development plan’s prospects: “We have been presented with a proper plan. We have committed, through the mayor, to appoint a steering committee of MMCs and officials who will report monthly on the developments. The mayor instructed us to have a workable plan which will help track the developments of certain areas of the project.”
The aviation industry
The aerotropolis project will wither on the vine, however, if the airport at its heart isn’t providing a steady flow of passengers and freight. Some recent developments on this front have been positive. The African Union has announced that it wants to launch a single African air transport market by 2018, with more than forty countries as signatories to the plan. The single air transport market would standardise policies and regulations towards air transport throughout the continent, massively reducing the costs of air freight transport and passenger travel to boost tourism, economic growth and development. If successful, this plan could provide a vital boost for the air transport industry on which the O.R. Tambo development
Aviation
relies. African carriers have long been held back by the failure of many African countries to fully implement the Yamoussoukro Declaration, a series of proposed policies which would establish a single air transport market like that of the EU.
That said, with plans for capacity expansion underway and a strong management team in the form of ACSA (managers of nine airports and all three major African international hubs), there’s no good reason why the relationship between O.R. Tambo and its aerotropolis should fail. Like so many similar projects happening on the continent, things are being done differently, and Ekurhuleni should see the benefits soon, and for some time to come.
This meant that foreign carriers often dominate the African skies as they’re large enough to operate despite the increased costs and difficulties of flying in Africa. As a result of this, major African carriers like Nigeria Airways, Zambia Airways and Air Afrique have been liquidated and others struggle to survive, with less than 20% of African air traffic flown by African aircraft. African aviation may die out altogether if these plans are not implemented, leaving developments like O.R. Tambo at the mercy of foreign carriers.
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