King Shaka International Airport (KSIA) opened in May 2010 and on May 1st it celebrated six years!!

The airport was voted the top Regional Airport for Africa in the Skytrax World Airport Awards in 2013/2014/2015, and was second in the 2013/2014/2015 ACI for the Best Airport in the Middle East/ Africa category. It is also rated by ACI the Best Airport in the World with five million passengers in 2013 and 2015 is placed very high in the Skytrax Top 100 airports.

The airport is viewed as a major economic catalyst for investment and growth in the region. From its inception KSIA enjoyed only 5% of international traffic, but this sector has shown great growth to almost 8% in the past year.

KSIA is designed for passenger capacity to grow from its current capacity of 7, 5 million in 2010/2011 to 45 million by 2060 should there be that demand. The airport, until the end of April financial year was handling almost five million passengers annually. The 3.7km runway allows for the Airbus A380 and Boeing 747s to land and take off; and provision was made for a second runway when demand requires this in the future. This was evident when most of 2015 BA and late last year Virgin Atlantic successfully conducted pilot training at the airport facility with the A380 and B787 Dreamliner respectively, the largest passenger aircraft in the world.

The airport is putting the final preparations in place to welcome the almost 20 000 delegates that will coming to Durban in July for the 21st World Aids Conference.  Durban should be very proud to be one of the only two cities in the world, that being Washington, to host this major world event twice and our airport once again is the host airport. During July we will also be hosting the Prime Minister of India when he makes his historical visit to Durban and KZN. As Durban is rated as the “event city” of South Africa the airport works closely with strategic partners to ensure our airport is always ready to welcome tourists, business delegations and conference delegates on a daily basis. The strategic goal of ACSA is to become the most sought after partner in the world for the provision of sustainable airport management solutions. ACSA’s simple pillars of success are to run airports, grow its footprint and develop airports. The ACSA maxim “Forward thinking, embracing change” also represents the company’s focus as a good corporate citizen.

http://kingshakainternational.co.za