It could take a passenger landing on an aircraft at Swaziland’s
new Sikhuphe International Airport nearly two hours to get through the terminal,
official figures from the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA ) suggest.
A SWACCA advertisement appearing in the Times of Swaziland on Tuesday (22 January
2014) said that Sikhuphe would be able to accommodate ‘fully laden Jumbo Jets
and other large aircraft’. Among the aircraft listed were the Boeing 747, the
Boeing 777 and the Airbus 340.
The same advert said, ‘The 7,000 sq m passenger terminal
can handle and process about 300 passengers per hour.’
What it did not say was that aircraft such as the Boeing
747 and 777 could have at least 400 and more than 550 passengers when fully
loaded. This means it could take at least two hours to load and offload passengers
on a single flight. If two aircraft landed in a single hour it would be nearly
impossible to deal with the passenger numbers.
The figures add further
weight to criticism that Sikhuphe International Airport, which is costing
an estimated E3 billion (US$300 million) to build in a wilderness about 80km
from the Swazi capital, Mbabane, is not viable.
No international airline has announced it has agreed to
use Sikhuphe, however, the advertisement said, ‘Two airlines have confirmed
operations at Sikhuphe.’ It did not name them, but did say there would be
flights to Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town in South Africa and to Maputo in
Mozambique.
Sikhuphe has been under construction for at least 10
years. The date for the airport’s opening in 2010 was missed and has been put
back a number of times since. In November 2013, SWACAA said the airport
was now completed and operational, but no flights have been in or out
since.
This month, Prince Hlangusemphi, Minister of Economic
Planning and Development admitted
that no taxiway had been built to allow aircraft to move around the airport
after landing.
He said the taxiway would be completed ‘very soon’. Then,
he said, the airport could be officially opened by King Mswati III.
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,
No independent study on the need for Sikhuphe Airport was
ever undertaken and the main impetus behind its construction has been King
Mswati, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. He
believes the airport will lend credibility to his dream to make Swaziland a
‘First World’ nation by 2022.
In 2003, the International Monetary
Fund said Sikhuphe 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.
Swaziland already has an airport at Matsapha, which carries
an estimated 70,000 passengers a year.
See also
PROOF: KING’S AIRPORT POINTLESS
KING’S AIRPORT ‘WILL BE UNUSABLE’
DOUBTS OVER
PROSPECTS FOR AIRPORT
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