New airport will be a gold mine for air and rail cargo
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Cape Town - By the year 2027, transportation of larger cargo airfreight will signal the beginning of a new dawn for exporters in the Western Cape, with fresher produce reaching its destinations in a faster time and will be more cost effective.
This week Exporters Western Cape engaged with the owners of the new airport, Cape Winelands Aero, where ideas were shared, stating they were sitting on a gold mine.
Cape Winelands Aero, situated in Durbanville, said according to their research, cargo capacity would increase significantly due to the closer distance of an alternative airport and would consequently reduce air cargo prices and prices of railway cargo.
It was earlier reported that the new airport will attain soaring heights with an estimated R7 billion expansion programme which will include massive cold storage spaces, vineyards, open spaces and warehouses, making it ideal for air freight and cargo transportation.
By 2027, the Northern District would have given birth to its first domestic and international travel airspace, expected to carry 1.7 million passengers a year, 3.8 million by 2040 and 5.2 million by 2050, and will take 25% of the total of Cape Town International Airport (CTIA).
The airport will have an expanded runway of 3.5 kilometres and the property stretches 900 hectares.
It will boast 2 million international tourists and 3 million domestic travellers a year by 2050, taking overall annual traffic to the region from 10 million to 20 million passengers.
It also aims to be self-sufficient, and to run off the grid for water and electricity by harnessing renewable energy sources such as solar and chicken manure biogas power, to power its facilities and operations.
Terry Gale, chairperson of Exporters Western Cape, who engaged with the owners and staff of Cape Winelands Aero, this week said they were excited at the prospect.
“From an exporter’s perspective this will be a game-changer, particularly with the problems we are having with the port, and you are finding that cargo can move via air freights, but it is a capacity problem to turn cargo from a sea freight to air freight, because sea freight does have bigger and larger parcels. However, if we can have more flights connecting to Cape Town, produce will be fresher and the services will be quicker,” he said.
“If we look at grapes and fresh produce, and we bring in cargo planes, that is what we mean, as Cape Town Airport is more passenger focused.
“But this airport will be focusing more on cargo and passengers where they will have the capacity to handle more cargo than Cape Town and they will have the capacity to work with bigger planes.
“Cape Town International has runway constraints whereas this one will have bigger runway space and that will mean having open surrounding fields and grounds.
“The location will also be ideal because the railway line is very close to the development,” he added.
Cargo can be stored and it can be railed as well, which is again talking about the Green energy.
“We have to look at Green credentials.”
Gale will be part of the Invest in Africa Summit in the Netherlands on April 16 and 17, where he will be focusing on the new airport, including the Culemborg Intermodal Logistics Precinct at the Port of Cape Town.
The summit is set to gather 1 000-plus key economic players in government and policy makers, high-profile African leaders, investors to developers and entrepreneurs.
The event itself will provide a platform to gain knowledge on African investment opportunities.
“When I go to The Hague it will be for the Investing in Africa Summit and this is one of the developments I want to talk about,” Gale said.
“And the other is Culemborg near the harbour. Freight forward, warehouses, storage facilities, it will be much cheaper to move containers.We are sitting on a gold mine in Cape Town.
“We are going to want those cargo planes coming directly to Cape Town, if you speak to any exporter, they do not want their cargo to go via another airport, they want it directly.
“We need more air freight and air cargo going into Africa. We need to have faith in our future, we have a future here.”
Mark Wilkinson, Director and General Manager of Cape Winelands, said as they were awaiting the plans to be approved for the environmental impact and others, they were literally sitting at the drawing board allocating each space and section of the airport which will include cargo, cold storage and warehouses.
“We have a blank canvas that does not limit us to new technology,” he said.
“We have a railway line which is less than a kilometre away.
“We see Cape Winelands to be the nucleus, connecting sea to rail and air and road and ports. We are at the beginning of 2024 and we have 12 months before our environmental approval and town planning approval and we hope to be operational by mid 2027.
“We are now starting to allocate space and co-design facilities with prospective tenants, ideally we will be the landlords. We are now starting to allocate plots.
“We find that the cargo sector has very limited data but we do think there is an opportunity for us to work together and to share data.”
Deon Cloete, the Managing Director of Cape Winelands, said the opportunities would be endless: “We are on the N1, we will bring road, port, rail and air together.”
Previously, Thulisiwe Mkatshwa of ACSA, Airports Company South Africa said they were preparing feedback on the new project.
Linden Birns, Aviation expert of Plane Talking also stated that prospects of the airport might see hiccups with funding and fuel.