King Shaka International Airport - Stepping Out

Airports Company South Africa Limited (ACSA)with a network of nine airports throughout South Africa handles over 98% of the country's commercial air traffic. The ACSA airports have implemented its operating model that seeks to transform all their airports into multifaceted, global gateways for travel, trade, job creation and commerce opportunities. ACSA's vision is to be a world leading airport business, and has since transformed its South African airports into internationally renowned, structurally and functionally advanced, customer focussed and award-winning aviation businesses.

The ACSA business has a network of nine airports, six of which are regional airports, and three that are international gateways - OR Tambo International, Cape Town International and King Shaka International. Within South Africa, ACSA has built airports with a combined capacity of 54 500 million passengers.

ACSA formed part of a consortium that took over the expansion and management of Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, India. In partnership with the Brazilian company, ACSA was successful in a bid to manage the development, maintenance and operations of Guarulhos International Airport in Sau Paulo, Brazil, the busiest international airport in Latin America.

King Shaka International Airport
Regarded as one of the best airports in the world, passenger numbers and flights have been on the increase since King Shaka International Airport (KSIA) opened nine years ago. From its inception in 2010, KSIA has garnered many accolades over this short period.

KSIA won this year's award for Best Regional Airport in Africa and Best Airport Staff in Africa serving 5-10 million passengers at an event held in London recently. The airport has also been recognised many times in the Skytrax awards. It goes further, KSIA has been chosen by passengers as one of the winners in 2018 Airports Council International (ACI) Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards. The airport was named amongst other award-winning global airports in the ASQ Departures Survey in the "Best Airport by Size and Region: 5-15 million passengers in Africa" category. KSIA was also voted internationally as the 10th Most Punctual Airport in the world in its category by OAG Aviation Worldwide in 2017.

In 2009 Emirates Airlines and Air Mauritius were the only international operators out of Durban and then KSIA. Since then, this has grown to include Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Proflight Zambia, SA Express, SA Airlink and Air Namibia which travels to Gaborone and Windhoek. On the domestic front Mango airline, SAA, SA Express, SA Airlink, Kulula, BA operated by Comair and Fly Safair are the operators to all major destinations in South Africa.

Another major accolade was the commencement in October 2018 of three flights a week, by British Airways, directly from London to Durban with B787 900 aircraft. This was achieved through the collective collaboration of the KZN Route Development Committee now called DURBAN DIRECT (involving the city, province, ACSA, Dube TradePort, Tourism KZN, Trade & Investment KZN) and other stakeholders. DURBAN DIRECT is an intergovernmental structure focused on promoting and developing new international air services to and from Durban. DURBAN DIRECT offers an attractive airline support programme, together with marketing support programmes, to assist airlines to start new and grow existing international air routes.

KSIA is a major economic catalyst for investment and growth in the region. The airport celebrated a major milestone in 2019 of reaching almost 6 million passengers by the end of the 2018/19 financial year. The number of international arrivals has increased from 96 000 a year, to 370 000. Since 2010, passenger seat capacity has increased from 6 million to 7.5 million. The compounded average growth rate over the past three years is 7% for seat capacity, and 8% for passenger numbers.

People and society is a key indicator of ACSA so investment in Socio Economic Development (SED) is a vital response to the socio-economic imperatives of the country. Therefore, ACSA’s social investment projects include mobility, health and welfare, job creation, community development, youth development, women empowerment, people with disabilities, environment and education; with focus on projects that boost infrastructure and education based on promoting tourism and jobs in South Africa. To this end KSIA has proudly invested almost R45 million in the past nine years on SED and we will continue to uplift communities.

ACSA is currently on a journey to promote and ensure transformation in various areas of the business and will continue to ensure that our business opportunities reflect the demographics and designated groups of the country at all our airports.

As part of its ongoing commitment to clean energy generation and sustainability, ACSA has rolled out a series of photovoltaic solar power plants at George, Kimberley and Upington Airports. To date four of ACSA airports have been awarded Level 1 Carbon Accreditation and includes KSIA who has been awarded the ISO 14001 Environment Accreditation.

ACSA Focus
ACSA’s vision is to become the most sought-after partner in the world for the provision of sustainable airport management solutions. The pillars that will ensure ACSA’s sustainability into the future is very clear; RUN AIRPORTS, DEVELOP AIRPORTS and GROW OUR FOOTPRINT. The ACSA strategy is underpinned by that decisions and actions taken will be based on its impact on people and society; to remain environmentally sustainable and to focus its business to continue contributing to the economic growth of the South Africa.