The Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) has approved a 10-year strategic business plan that makes provision for infrastructural upgrades and investments worth USD7billion (ZAR70billion), of which ZAR20billion will be used for refurbishments and maintenance while ZAR50billion will be used to create new capacity at South Africa’s nine major airports.
While ACSA was not permitted by the South African government to increase its tariffs in order to pay for costly ZAR17billion infrastructural upgrades needed for the 2010 World Cup, ACSA's group executive for aviation services, John Neville, says a new funding model with the industry was being worked on in order to pay for the upgrades, needed to meet anticipated growth of between 4-5% per annum.
"We’re in a fortunate position in that the money we did spend leading up to the World Cup, and the lack of air-traffic growth since 2008, has meant that we have got capacity going forward for longer than we would normally have. So we are anticipating that we will only have to start putting concrete in the ground in the latter half." Mr Neville said the first five years would focus on normal maintenance expenditure.
Source [BusinessDay]
The expansion investments "will be across most of the network" although the largest airports - OR Tambo International and Cape Town International - would receive the biggest portions.
While ACSA is planning to employ the "Aerotropolis/AeroCity" model to several of its airports (see: Johannesburg and Bloemfontein), the group also has plans to invest abroad with it being part of a consortium which won a concession to manage Mumbai International Airport in 2006, and also won 51% of a 20-year concession for the Sao Paulo, Brazil airport last year.
