Sikhuphe International Airport in
Swaziland, dubbed by independent observers as ‘King
Mswati III’s vanity project’, is supposed to be open and operational, but
there are no obvious signs that it is.
Solomon Dube, director of the Swaziland Civil Aviation
Authority (SWACAA), was widely reported in the Swazi media last month saying
the airport would be ‘fully licenced and operational’ by now.
The Times Sunday, an
independent newspaper in the kingdom, reported
Dube saying he was ‘sure, confident and optimistic’ about a late October or
early November date because the facility licencing was ongoing and was being
undertaken by his department.
But, we still await the first plane to touch down and if recent
history is a guide, the opening will not take place in the foreseeable
future.
Sikhuphe has been widely criticised as a vanity project
for the King, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute
monarch. The King is keen to show that
his kingdom is on its way to becoming a ‘first world’ nation.
As long ago as 2003, the International Monetary Fund
said it should not
be built because it would divert funds away from much needed projects to
fight poverty in Swaziland. About seven in ten of King Mswati’s 1.3 million
subjects live in abject poverty, earning less than US$2 per day.
It was first announced that it would open in June 2010,
and its opening has been delayed
many times since.
There is no
obvious need for the new airport which is being built in the Swazi wilderness
80 kilometres east of the Swazi capital Mbabane.
Major airports already exist less than an hour’s flying time
away in South Africa with connecting routes to Swaziland and there is no reason
to suspect passengers would want to use the airport at Sikhuphe as an
alternative.
There has never been a needs analysis undertaken on the airport, and Swaziland’s present airport at Matsapha only carries about 70,000 passengers a year. Swaziland Airlink, a joint venture between South African Airlink and the Swaziland government, is the only carrier using the airport and only flies to OR Tambo at Johannesburg.
SWACAA has forecast an annual passenger turnover of 250 000 to 300 000 for Sikhuphe (this equates to 822 passengers on average per day), but so far no international airline has said it wants to use the airport.
There has never been a needs analysis undertaken on the airport, and Swaziland’s present airport at Matsapha only carries about 70,000 passengers a year. Swaziland Airlink, a joint venture between South African Airlink and the Swaziland government, is the only carrier using the airport and only flies to OR Tambo at Johannesburg.
SWACAA has forecast an annual passenger turnover of 250 000 to 300 000 for Sikhuphe (this equates to 822 passengers on average per day), but so far no international airline has said it wants to use the airport.
Media reports in Swaziland suggest the cost of Sikhuphe
is about E3 billion (US$300 million) so far.
As recently as October 2013 a report from the International
Air Transport Association (IATA) said Sikhuphe International Airport was
widely perceived as a ‘vanity project’ because of its scale and opulence
compared with the size and nature of the market it seeks to serve.
In June 2013 an engineer’s report was published by to the
Mail and Guardian newspaper in South
Africa saying the structure of the airport was defected and large
jet airlines would not be able to land,
See also
KING’S VANITY COMES BEFORE THE POOR
KING’S AIRPORT ‘WILL BE UNUSABLE’
KING’S AIRPORT NOT READY UNTIL 2016
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