If the statistics revealed by the Ministry of Home Affairs are correct this is down from 327 passengers a day that Swaziland Tourist Authority (STA) said departed the airport in January 2015.
The Ministry of Home Affairs in its first quarter performance report for 2016/2017 recorded a total number of 6,717 arrivals between the month of April and June 2016 and recorded a total number of 7,138 departures. These figures were published in the Swazi Observer newspaper on Thursday (15 September 2016).
The King Mswati III airport, named after the kingdom’s absolute ruler, has been mired in controversy since its inception. It was built in a wilderness at Sikhuphe and replaced Matsapha airport which was close to the kingdom’s capital Mbabane and its main commercial city Manzini.
KM III officially opened in March 2014 and since then there have been variously exaggerated claims about the number of people travelling through it and the number of airlines wishing to use it.
The Swazi Observer,
a newspaper in effect owned by the King, reported
twice in April 2015 that the Swaziland Tourist Authority (STA) said there
were 10,138 passengers departing the airport in January 2015 and 6,592
passengers arriving, making a total of 16,730 passengers. If these figures were
repeated each month of the year, 200,760 passengers would travel through the
airport in a year.
But, Swazi
Media Commentary exposed these statistics
as entirely bogus. There are only three flights per day departing the
airport and another three arriving. The airport serves only one route – to OR
Tambo Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa. Swaziland Airlink is the only
passenger airline that uses the airport. Airlink uses the Embraer J135 aircraft
which has a maximum seating capacity of 50.
If every flight was full a maximum of 150 people per day
could depart the airport, which would make a maximum of 4,500 per month.
Despite the obviously fraudulent figures the Swaziland Civil
Aviation Authority (SWACAA) Marketing and Corporate Affairs Director Sabelo
Dlamini said
in April 2015, ‘We are noting that the figures are rising and for us, it
points to a brighter future in aviation. It is also an affirmation of the
massive work the government of Swaziland has done over the past five years to
do right in the civil aviation industry, in particular the construction of an
airport facility travellers are happy with.’
The newspaper reported, ‘Dlamini further noted that the drop
in numbers that had been projected by critics had not happened at all.’
The Observer,
which was described as a
‘pure propaganda machine for the royal family’ by the Media Institute of
Southern Africa in a report on media freedom in the kingdom, reported
on 12 May 2015, SWACAA
Director General Solomon Dube saying ‘only 70,000’ people per year used the
airport. He did not give any evidence to support the figures. The 70,000
passengers represented 35 percent of the 200,760 claimed in April 2015.
SWACAA had previously said the KM III Airport would need at
least 300,000 passengers a year to break-even.
The Times of Swaziland reported on 12
May 2015 that Dube also announced that Egyptair had offered Swaziland a
268-seater aircraft. The newspaper reported him saying, ‘the main objective of
this initiative is to increase airplane passengers by up to 200,000’.
The Times reported, ‘Dube said courtesy
of well-managed diplomatic relations between the two States, Swaziland had been
offered to utilise services of one of Egyptair’s flights to transport
passengers between Swaziland and South Africa for 10 hours a day. He said using
the flight for at least 10 hours a day could translate to about five or seven
flights to the neighbouring republic, on a daily basis.’
No Egyptair flights have taken place.
This claim from Dube was one of a long line of empty
promises made about the attractiveness of the airport.
In November
2013, SWACAA said that the Swazi Government was ready to recreate the
defunct Royal Swazi National Airways Corporation (RSNAC0) and would set about
purchasing a 100-seater jet, at a cost estimated by the Times of Swaziland of E700 million (US$70 million). This compared
to the E125 million budgeted
for free primary school education in Swaziland that year. It never
happened.
SWACAA said RSNAC would fly to 10 destinations in Africa and
Asia. Observers estimated RSNAC would probably need a minimum of 10 aircraft to
service the routes. For that to happen, Swaziland would have to spend about E7
billion on aircraft. Such a sum of money would bankrupt the kingdom. To put the
cost in context the Central Bank of Swaziland has estimated the kingdom’s gross
official reserves were E8.24 billion at the month ended November 2013.
There has also been constant misinformation about the
prospect of airlines choosing to use the airport.
In October 2009, King Mswati claimed Etihad Airways from the
Gulf
State of Abu Dhabi was showing ‘deep interest’ in using the airport.
Nothing has been heard since.
In May 2011, the Swazi Observer reported Sabelo Dlamini
saying, ‘We have established possible routes which we want to market to the operators.
Some of the proposed routes from Sikhuphe are Durban, Cape Town, Lanseria
Airport in Sandton, Harare and Mozambique.’ Nothing happened.
In June 2012, he told
Swazi media that at least three airlines from different countries had
‘shown interest’ in using the airport, but he declined to name them. He remained
optimistic about the prospects for the future and said SWACAA was talking
to airlines in other countries as well. Nothing happened.
Then in February 2013 SWACAA Director General Solomon Dube told
media in Swaziland, ‘We are talking to some including Kenya Airways,
Ethiopian Airline and various Gulf airlines.’ Nothing happened.
In March 2013, SWACAA
claimed five airlines had signed deals to use the airport when it
eventually opened, but an investigation
by Swazi Media Commentary revealed that two of the airlines named did not
exist. It also said Botswana Airways would use the airport, but it has not.
In October 2013, SWACAA claimed it had targeted
small and medium business travellers to use the airport. It said low-cost
airlines were interested in using it for business travellers who might want to
fly to nearby countries ‘on a daily basis’.
AS recently as March 2016, Minister of Public Works and
Transport Lindiwe Dlamini said
Air Mauritius would fly from the airport.
In January 2016, the Swazi Observer reported Swazi Air
was ready to fly to Dubai, Cape Town, India and Durban.
KMIII Airport was built in a wilderness in Swaziland on the
whim of King Mswati, who rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
No research was undertaken to determine the need for the airport.
Critics of the airport argued for years that there was no
potential for the airport. Major airports already existed less than an
hour’s flying time away in South Africa with connecting routes to Swaziland and
there was no reason to suspect passengers would want to use KMIII airport as an
alternative.
During the 11 years it took to build, the airport was called
Sikhuphe, but the name was changed in honour of the King when it officially
opened in March 2014.
The airport cost an estimated E2.5 billion (US$250 million)
to build.
In October 2013 a report from the International
Air Transport Association (IATA) said the 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.
Since it opened only one commercial passenger airline,
Swaziland Airlink, which is part-owned by the Swazi Government, has used the
Airport. The airline was forced
to move from the Matsapha Airport, even though an independent
business analysis predicted the airline would go out of business as a
result.
No other airline has publicly said it wanted to use the
airport.
See also
AIRPORT MOVE WILL ‘BANKRUPT AIRLINK’
PROOF: KING’S AIRPORT POINTLESS
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/02/proof-kings-airport-pointless.html
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