“Out-of-order escalators, moving walkways that don’t move, chipped tiles, cracked walls … these do not make for a good first impression on the many tourists visiting SA.”
This is the opening paragraph of an article that appeared in Moneyweb on 11 October 2024.
The article goes on to say that “At long last, Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) is fixing what was once a gleaming, bright and efficient international airport.”
Note that an airport is an example of public infrastructure. So its proposed upgrading is very welcome
Moneyweb noted the following:
- International check-in is either a fairly new and well-lit central terminal or the noticeably dated Terminal A;
- Escalators that have been out of order for years are being replaced, but slowly;
- Most moving walkways are switched off, probably because they do not work anymore;
- Countless tiles are chipped or cracked, and have never been replaced;
- Cracks have appeared in walls across the airport;
- Some air bridges are “antiques”;
- Ceilings are grimy; and
- Mango signage is still up at baggage claim and in its former head office.
And then there are the two international departure halls, each with its own security control. The second one in particular looks and feels like a hasty add-on. It is cramped, with inconvenient pillars in the way of the queues, and too few personnel and machines to manage the security processing of people and their hand luggage.
I will say, however, that airports in many other parts of the world don’t do much better with security. But it would be nice if we did.
The worst part, Moneyweb notes, of the entire airport complex, and “ironically the first impression many tourists have of our country is the dull, badly lit arrivals hall (including passport control and baggage collection). With a bit of imagination and some investment, this could be a magnificent advert for South Africa. Instead, we have bland nothingness”.
However, all the parking booms and payment machines, roofs and toilets (I’m not sure about all the toilets, from personal experience) have been refurbished.
Moneyweb notes that Acsa acknowledges that Covid-19 hit it, as with airlines and airport operators worldwide: some are still recovering, and others became bankrupt.
Acsa took three years to recover, and by the end of March 2024, domestic and international air travel was nearing 90% of its 2019 business.
Acsa says that over the next three years, it will invest R10.1 billion in capital expenditure across its airports, mostly in the 2026/27 year – starting with just under R1 billion this year, R2 billion next, and R7 billion thereafter. Of this, R6.5 billion will be dedicated to refurbishment and rehabilitation.
This forms part of the R21.7 billion investment programme Acsa announced in March. Most of this will go to OR Tambo International and Cape Town International – by far the country’s two busiest airports.
I have to say that I’ve been through a number of airports in First World countries in the past few months, and OR Tambo is by no means worse.
But there are issues, mostly outside of Acsa’s purview, that will quickly tarnish any visitor’s view of South Africa.
Passport Control
This is the remit of, you guessed it, Home Affairs.
If I remember correctly, there are eight desks each in the two passport control sections. I believe I’m correct in saying that the peak times for international departures are the late afternoon and/or early evening. But there are always, in my recent experience (over the last decade), only, at best, two officials on duty for all the planes leaving. Sometimes a third official joins them when his/her shift starts on the hour.
One Friday evening, which is usually particularly busy, it was announced that “the system is down”. Otherwise, patient travellers became feral as the risk of missing flights became a very real possibility.
The worst thing about this experience was that the officials did not appear to have a Plan B. Only when you got near the front did you see them handing out hastily photocopied forms to fill out with your name, passport number and something else (can’t recall – put it down to PTSD). And then you’d get to the official at the desk and they wanted something else added.
This crisis could not have been passport control’s first rodeo!
They could have had officials walking down the ever-growing line of unprocessed passengers to explain the problem, the ‘forms’ could have been rolled out properly and more speedily and, of course, said officials could have kept passengers updated.
Plans could have been made to create separate queues for people who faced looming gate closure times (oh, the dread!). After all, we all had to present our boarding passes so anyone trying to jump the queues would be rumbled. They could even have got the passengers to help − I’m sure some would have been only too willing to do so.
It must be hell for officials to have systems going down, but there is no plan to make their own lives that bit easier. And, as in my case, the traveller’s resentment is that much higher, at having to endure this tension before sitting in cattle class for ten to fourteen hours, unable to pick up your dropped fork, contemplating having to brace,
– should bracing be needed – against the seat in front of you, guaranteeing your neck gets broken if the crash doesn’t get you, and knowing you are trapped if the person in front of you reclines his seat. A trip to the toilet is out of the question… iron bladders are obligatory.
And then you drive out of the airport…
When you leave OR Tambo there are virtually no working street lights, and some have just keeled over. We’re used to that for one (Eskom) or another (Eskom) reason but there is no longer the Eskom excuse. The municipality is responsible for changing the globes and making sure the light grids work. And if not, we need clear road markings instead, particularly to reflect headlights at night.
That trip becomes a hell run. You can’t see where the lanes are and, South African drivers being what they are, it must be white-knuckled stuff for not-so-fresh-faced tourists and investors. Oh, and the road signage is showing its age in many parts of the hell run.
Does anyone remember the spanking trip into Joburg during the soccer World Cup back in 2010? So, it can be done; with some efficiency and more modest corruption, it can be done!
Chief Dawid Stuurman International Airport
Or, as we all call it. “PE Airport”. It’s a real mistake to think only about Joburg and Cape Town airports. The Eastern Cape − Storms River, Nature’s Valley, Jeffreys Bay, etc – are very popular with European visitors spending their valuable (well, to us anyway) euros.
Gqeberha/PE Airport is small and rather quaint in a dilapidated kind of way. As far as I know, the awful drought Gqeberha/PE experienced ended (or at least eased) about a year ago. As at 14 October 2024, four of the five dams that feed PE were between 100.8% and 103.7% full. Obviously public facilities, like shopping centres and hotels, are still very careful about water usage, which is the correct response to a near-catastrophic situation.
But Gqeberha/PE Airport is ultra cautious: so cautious, in fact, that there is no water in its toilets. There are only a couple of sad, laptop-generated signs sticky-taped to the walls apologising for there being no water in the toilets. And when you come off a flight from Joburg or Cape Town….
Even if there was still a drought you would expect Acsa to have made a plan. But, no, they’d rather rely on the friendliness of (most) of the good burghers of Gqeberha/PE to charm them out of their consternation at discovering water-free toilets, by which I don’t mean “eco-friendly” toilets.
Creating and repairing infrastructure comes at a cost, but the issues raised in this article are not that costly, relatively speaking.
It’s not about commissioning nuclear energy plants. It’s not about improving vast distances of road networks to areas such as the spectacular Wild Coast.
But surely there are changes that can be made that would make the experience of tourists and investors (local and international) just so much better.
We are generally very friendly people, even at passport control, when returning home after over 10 hours in the air, at 05h00 in the morning. But being friendly can be hard work when it’s not backed up by safety, efficiency and cleanliness.
It’s often the seemingly little things that make visitors feel wanted, and I’m not just talking about having some of the best, value-for-money cappuccinos in the world!
[Image: by Jan Helebrant from Pixabay]
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend.