CONFIRMED: END OF SWAZI AIRWAYS

The national airline in Swaziland that was created with fanfares and claims it would serve routes across Africa has closed down and all 23 employees have been retrenched.

Confirmation of the closure and staff redundancies came through the Ministry of Labour and Social Security First Quarter (April to June 2017) Performance report, which was tabled in the House of Assembly. 

The airline closed for business in April 2017 when it became clear the tiny kingdom could not afford a single aircraft.

Even so, E20 million had been spent on leasing a 29-year-old Boeing 737-300 that never once flew commercially. In addition, an estimated E750,000 a month was paid to airline staff who had no work to do.

Swazi Airways was intended to replace the already defunct Royal Swaziland National Airways. The plan to launch the new airline came after the opening of King Mswati III (KM3) Airport. The airport, built in the wilderness in southeast Swaziland about 70 km from a major city, was the brainchild of the King, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

The airport that was originally named Sikhuphe was dubbed a “white elephant” and “vanity project” by critics outside the kingdom. The cost of building the airport will never be known, but estimates are that it cost at least E300 million.

The airport officially opened in March 2014 and since then the only passenger-carrying airline to use it has been Swazi Airlink, which is part-owned by the Swazi Government. Despite repeated promises from the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA) that there was interest from major international airlines to fly into KM3, none have down so.

In December 2015, the Sunday Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, and described by the Media Institute of Southern Africa in a review on media freedom in the kingdom, as  a ‘pure propaganda machine for the royal family’ reported, that Swazi Airways would fly to 10 countries once it had become fully operational.  The destinations were the United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda, South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda and Botswana. 

At the end of March 2017 it became clear that the kingdom could not afford the airline. Swazi Airways decided to drop its lease on the Boeing, but was left with a E6 million debt to the company that leased it.

See also

PROOF: KING’S AIRPORT POINTLESS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/02/proof-kings-airport-pointless.html

 

AIRLINK FORCED TO USE KING’S AIRPORT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/airlink-forced-to-use-kings-airport.html

 

AIRPORT MOVE WILL ‘BANKRUPT AIRLINK’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2014/03/airport-move-will-bankrupt-airlink.html

END OF SWAZILAND’S NATIONAL AIRLINE

A grand plan by Swaziland to create a national airline has crashed after it became clear the tiny kingdom could not afford a single aircraft.

Even so, E20 million had been spent on leasing a 29-year-old Boeing 737-300 that never once flew commercially. In addition, an estimated E750,000 a month continues to be paid to airline staff who have no work to do.

Swazi Airways was intended to replace the already defunct Royal Swaziland National Airways. The plan to launch the new airline came after the opening of King Mswati III (KM3) Airport. The airport, built in the wilderness in southeast Swaziland about 70 km from a major city, was the brainchild of the King, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

The airport that was originally named Sikhuphe was dubbed a “white elephant” and “vanity project” by critics outside the kingdom. The cost of building the airport will never be known, but estimates are that it cost at least E300 million.

The airport officially opened in March 2014 and since then the only passenger-carrying airline to use it has been Swazi Airlink, which is part-owned by the Swazi Government. Despite repeated promises from the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA) that there was interest from major international airlines to fly into KM3, none have down so.

In December 2015, the Sunday Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, and described by the Media Institute of Southern Africa in a review on media freedom in the kingdom, as  a ‘pure propaganda machine for the royal family’ reported, that Swazi Airways would fly to 10 countries once it had become fully operational.  The destinations were the United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda, South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda and Botswana. 

At the end of March 2017 it became clear that the kingdom could not afford the airline. Swazi Airways decided to drop its lease on the Boeing, but was left with a E6 million debt to the company that leased it.

During a debate on the Swaziland budget senators decided to freeze an allocation of E16 million for the airline, amid accusations of bad management and corruption. Members of the House of Assembly called for a progress report on the airline after three months.

See also

PROOF: KING’S AIRPORT POINTLESS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/02/proof-kings-airport-pointless.html

 

AIRLINK FORCED TO USE KING’S AIRPORT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/airlink-forced-to-use-kings-airport.html

 

AIRPORT MOVE WILL ‘BANKRUPT AIRLINK’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2014/03/airport-move-will-bankrupt-airlink.html

BID TO TALK-UP KING’S FAILED AIRPORT

In another attempt to deceive people that Swaziland’s King Mswati III (KM3) International Airport is a success, plans have been announced to build a ‘glittering’ city in the area nearby.
 

The airport, formerly known as Sikhuphe, was opened in March 2014. The construction cost was estimated to be US$250 million, but fewer than 150 passengers a day fly out of the airport, which is built in a wilderness. Only one airline uses the airport for a route to Johannesburg in neighbouring South Africa.

Now, Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA) Director General Solomon Dube has told businesspeople that there are plans to establish a city near the airport. In its report on the matter, the Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by the King, called it a ‘glittering’ plan.  It reported on Friday (18 September 2015) the plan would include, ‘opportunities such as hotels, hospitals, malls and other permanent structures which can be found in cities will be available’. 

The talking-up of the airport is nothing new. By any objective criteria, the airport has been a failure, but it was the brainchild of King Mswati III himself who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch and this failure is ignored within his kingdom.

The airport was built in an attempt to support the King’s claim that his kingdom would be a ‘First World’ nation by 2022. At present seven in ten of the 1.3 population live in abject poverty, with incomes of less than US$2 a day.

The city is not the only recent grandiose plan to be announced in Swaziland. Last month (August 2015), the Swazi Government, which is unelected and handpicked by the King, announced its support for a US$3 billion scheme to build a seaport in the landlocked kingdom connected to the coast of Mozambique by canal.

See also

U-TURN ON SUCCESS OF KING’S AIRPORT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2015/05/u-turn-on-success-of-kings-airport.html

SWAZI GOVT STANDS BY FLAWED PORT PLANS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2015/09/swazi-govt-stands-by-us3bn-port-plan.html

KING’S AIRPORT LACKS DISASTER PLAN

News that the SADC Aviation Safety Organisation (SASO), which is responsible for overseeing all safety precautions in the aviation industry, is moving its operations to Swaziland should raise eyebrows because the kingdom itself has no safety plan in operation should a plane crash at the King Mswati III Airport.

This lack of a plan was first disclosed publicly as long ago as November 2010, more than three years before the airport, dubbed King Mswati’s ‘vanity project’, officially opened.

But nothing has been done to ensure passengers have a chance of surviving a crash on take-off or landing.

Musa Hlophe, coordinator of the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations, writing in his regular column in the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in the kingdom, on 28 November 2010, asked what would happen if an aircraft with (say) 400 passengers on board crashed at the airport?

He wrote, ‘Assuming that we expanded our country’s ambulance fleet to 200 and each one was able to get to Sikhuphe [the original name of the airport]within one hour, how could our hospitals manage with hundreds of extra patients in one day? The closest hospital will be Good Shepherd at Siteki which is not exactly state of the art and the nearest major hospitals are in Manzini and Mbabane. They are already all on their knees, struggling to cope with our current crises of TB, HIV&AIDS. 

‘Do our hospitals have a plan to cope with maybe 400 foreign people all needing bed spaces urgently? Do we have enough doctors and nurses trained in accident and emergency and most importantly do we have the necessary medicines, equipment and blood for this level of disaster? In a country that cannot even supply its own citizens with the proper drugs to prevent a child dying from rabies because of the bite of one dog - I doubt it. I doubt they could cope with fifty people never mind four hundred.

‘Sikhuphe’s business model to attract major foreign passenger carriers is already flawed because of the competition from four other regional airports within half a day’s drive - Kruger National in Mbombela (Nelspruit), Maputo in Mozambique, King Shaka in Durban and, of course, OR Tambo in Johannesburg. But what really stands out for me, as someone who has worked for businesses for a long time, is what little proper risk analysis has gone on here. Can you imagine an airline that wanted to carry rich western investors and tourists that would risk the lives of hundreds of its passengers? Can you imagine them ignoring the lack of medical systems, equipment, personnel or facilities to cope with even a relatively minor crash that required treatment of only a quarter of their passengers and staff?

‘If we adapt our medical systems to meet this need, will we take resources away from our families who are living with and dying from HIV&AIDS? So I ask a question that does not seem to have been considered in public before. How will the disaster plan for Sikhuphe affect the provision of health care for the rest of us? Will the health budget be diverted from the families of our sick and dying to allow for the imagined needs of strangers who will only stay a few hours in our country? Has Minister Xaba and his team even considered it - have they thought it through? What do they say to the foreign investors?’

The answers to Holphe’s rhetorical questions were, and remain, No. There is no plan in operation, nor is there any indication that anyone connected with the organisation of the airport or the Swazi Government is trying to create one.

Despite this obvious lack of a safety plan, Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA) Director General Solomon Dube told the Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, the kingdom’s absolute monarch, that SASO was moving its operations from Botswana to Swaziland because, among other reasons, ‘there was continuous surveillance to make sure that safety precautions were always observed in the aviation industry’. 

He also said SASO wanted to ensure ‘that there was severe punishment on any person or organisation that violated the safety standards in the aviation industry’.

On closer inspection it turns out that Swaziland’s civil aviation record was last audited in 2007 by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) - seven years before the new airport opened. ICAO found that Swaziland was only 16 percent compliant to the ICAO safety standards.

SASO based its decision to move to Swaziland on the results of this audit.

See also

U-TURN ON SUCCESS OF KING’S AIRPORT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2015/05/u-turn-on-success-of-kings-airport.html

DISASTER AT SIKHUPHE AIRPORT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2010/11/disaster-at-sikhuphe-airport.html

PROOF: KING’S AIRPORT POINTLESS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/02/proof-kings-airport-pointless.html

KING’S AIRPORT MISSES TARGET BY A MILE

Only 194 passengers a day on average have used Swaziland’s new US$250 million King Mswati III Airport since commercial flights started in October 2014, official figures have revealed. 

If the average continues over a full year the airport is likely to reach only 23 percent of the 300,000 passengers needed for it to be able to breakeven financially.

That shortfall amounts to 230,000 passengers per year.

In the first four months of its operation since October 2014, the airport, formerly known as Sikhuphe, saw 11,388 passengers arrive and 11,952 depart. If these figures remain consistent across a full year a total of 70,020 passengers would have used the airport. This total is in line with the 60,000 to 70,000 passengers per year that used the Matsapha Airport, which King Mswati III Airport replaced.

According to official Swazi Government figures, King Mswati III Airport needs at least 300,000 passengers per year to breakeven financially.

The airport opened in March 2014 but only received its first commercial flights the following October. The only airline to use the airport has been the part-government-controlled Swaziland Airlink. No other airline has said it will use KMIII which was built in a wilderness about 70km from the main towns of Mbabane and Manzini.

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. The airport was built on the instruction of King Mswati who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. No needs analysis was completed before building began.

The Airport took more than 10 years to build and opened at least four years behind schedule. 

In 2003, the International Monetary Fund said the airport should not be built because it would divert funds away from much needed projects to fight poverty in Swaziland. The full cost of the airport is not known, but estimates have put it at E2.5 billion (US$250 million). 

About seven in ten of King Mswati’s 1.3 million subjects live in abject poverty, with incomes less than US$2 per day, three in ten are so hungry they are medically diagnosed as malnourished and the kingdom has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world. 

In an analysis of the airport’s future, published in March 2014, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) said there were still many serious questions about the sustainability of the airport including, ‘how will it lure additional airlines to use its services, how will it compete with the airports in Johannesburg and Maputo, and will it ever get close to its full capacity of 360,000 passengers each year - which is more than five times as many as currently used by the existing airport at Matsapha’.

The passenger figures were released by the Swaziland Tourism Authority and published in the Observer Sunday, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati. 

According to the newspaper, ‘On average, arrivals at KMIII International Airport have been averaging over 1,000 [per month] since it started operating; 1,698 in October, 1,693 in November and 1,405 in December while outbound passengers recorded were 587 in October, 826 in November and 401 in December.’

It added, ‘According to data compiled by the Swaziland Tourism Authority (STA) in collaboration with the Department of Immigration, in January [2015] an unprecedented 10,138 passengers left Swaziland through KMIII while 6,592 arrivals were recorded.’ 

The newspaper, which was called a ‘pure propaganda machine for the royal family’ by the Media Institute of Southern Africa in a report on media freedom in the kingdom, gave no explanation for the apparent nine-fold increase in passenger numbers in a single month between December 2014 and January 2015.

See also

PROOF: KING’S AIRPORT POINTLESS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/02/proof-kings-airport-pointless.html

 

AIRPORT MOVE WILL ‘BANKRUPT AIRLINK’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2014/03/airport-move-will-bankrupt-airlink.html

SWAZIS NOT CONVINCED BY KING’S AIRPORT

The head of Swaziland’s civil aviation authority has admitted that it has failed to convince the Swazi public that the new King Mswati III Airport has any use.

Solomon Dube, Director of the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA), was reacting to news that the airport, formerly known as Sikhuphe, did not have office space to accommodate airlines using the airport nor did it have hangars for aircraft.

The airport was officially opened in March 2014 by King Mswati, but to date no airline has used it. Even King Mswati himself prefers to use the already existing Matsapha Airport when he flies the world in his private jet.

Dube told local media that a special block of offices could be built for airlines. He added, ‘This may not be possible though because we still have to convince the taxpayer that the facility is useful and functional. We cannot do that when we do not have an airline operating from there.’

The airport which cost at least E3 billion (US$300 million) to construct has always been controversial. No needs analysis was undertaken before building began and the development has been dubbed a ‘vanity project’ for King Mswati.

No airline to date has publicly announced it will use the airport and there are doubts about whether the airport has a licence to operate.

In April 2014 it was revealed the Swazi public had been banned from visiting the new airport in case they wore out floor tiles in the passenger lounge.

In an analysis of the airport’s future, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) said there were still many serious questions about the sustainability of the airport, ‘including when will it open for business, how will it lure additional airlines to use its services, how will it compete with the airports in Johannesburg and Maputo, and will it ever get close to its full capacity of 360,000 passengers each year - which is more than five times as many as currently used by the existing airport at Matsapha’.

King Mswati has repeatedly said he wants Swaziland to be a First World nation by 2022. 

OSISA said, ‘While the King's critics find the idea of transforming Swaziland into a developed state and economic powerhouse within eight years laughable, especially given the fact that almost two-thirds of the population still live below the poverty line, Mswati can now point to the (long overdue) airport as proof that the country is moving in the right direction - regardless of whether the airport ever attracts the desired traffic or justifies its vast costs.’

See also

BIZARRE CLAIMS FOR KING’S AIRPORT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2014/05/bizarre-claims-for-kings-airport.html

BIZARRE CLAIMS FOR KING’S AIRPORT

Apologists for the newly-opened, but as yet unused, King Mswati III Airport in Swaziland are going to extraordinary lengths to talk up the value of the project, dubbed by critics the King’s ‘vanity project’.
 

Leading the charge is the Swazi Observer group of newspapers that is in effect owned by the King.

The Sunday Observer (25 May 2014) claimed the airport was a ‘heat’ (presumably it meant a ‘hit’) in Botswana. It then manufactured a story claiming that government ministers from all over Africa, who were in Botswana for the ANOCA games, ‘praised the standards of the airport’.

In fact, it only quoted one of them, Sudan’s Minister of Sports, who admitted he had never been to the airport and had never even visited Swaziland.

The Observer is one of the cheerleaders for the airport, formerly known as Sikhuphe, which was officially opened in March 2014. No commercial airline has flown in or out of the airport, and none have said they plan to do so in the future.

Even King Mswati himself does not use the airport, built at a cost of at least E3 billion (US$300 million) in a wilderness in southeast Swaziland. He prefers to fly his private jet from the Matsapha Airport, which is close to both the kingdom’s capital, Mbabane, and the main commercial city, Manzini.

This is not the only time recently that the Swazi Observer has misled its readers about the potential of the airport.

On13 May 2014 it quoted Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA) Corporate Affairs Director Sabelo Dlamini saying was being discussed to fly passengers from Swaziland to Durban, South Africa, for onward flights to Germany and the United Kingdom. The newspaper ignored the fact that Swazi people wishing to fly to those European destinations can already do so via Johannesburg.

Dlamini has made extravagant claims about the potential of the airport in the past. In May 2011, the Weekend Observer reported him 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.’ But nothing has happened since.

Dlamini also claimed at the time that he met with ‘at least five big airline operators’. The newspaper only named three of them; Knysla Tour Operators, Timeless Ethiopia and Satoa Tours. None of them were ‘big airline operators’ and since 2011 nothing has been heard again about them.

In January 2014, SWACAA placed an advertisement in newspapers in Swaziland claiming, ‘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. Nothing has been heard since.

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. 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, with incomes of less than US$2 per day. Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world. The King has 13 palaces and a personal fortune once estimated by Forbes Magazine to be US$200 million. Meanwhile, seven in ten of his subjects live in abject poverty with an income of less than US$2 a day.

Swaziland already has an airport at Matsapha, which carries an estimated 70,000 passengers a year.

PUBLIC BANNED FROM KING’S NEW AIRPORT

The Swazi public have been banned from visiting the new King Mswati III Airport in Swaziland in case they wear out floor tiles in the passenger lounge.

The no-visitors directive has been issued by the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA). The airport, formerly known as Sikhuphe, was opened in March 2014, but no commercial flights have used it and none are planned.

The cost so far of the airport is E3 billion (US$300 million), much of the money came from the Swazi taxpayer.

King Mswati III, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, issued a directive that the airport should remain in sublime condition.

The Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland and a critic of the building of the airport, reported SWACAA Director Solomon Dube saying the airport was not a museum or a mall. He also said visitors were banned for ‘security reasons’.

The newspaper reported him saying, ‘Everyone should cool down and stay away from the airport for now. This arrangement goes in line with the call from His Majesty the King, who said it should be kept in sublime condition.’

Dube said letting people into the facility could cause damage to some parts of the infrastructure, such as the ceramic tiles on the floor for the building.

‘Ceramic tiles are expensive and their disproportionate use could damage them and it would cost us a lot of money to replace them. We also do not want the structure to age before passengers and airlines even use it,’ he said.

The airport is under 24-hour guard by the Royal Swaziland Police who worked with private security firms to ensure that anxious visitors who were excited by the structure were kept out of the facility, the Times reported.

The airport, dubbed King Mswati’s ‘vanity project,’ needs about 400,000 passengers a year to break even.

See also

‘KING’S AIRPORT STILL HAS NO LICENCE’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2014/03/kings-airport-still-has-no-licence.html

AIRPORT TERMINAL CAN'T HANDLE TRAFFIC

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

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/02/proof-kings-airport-pointless.html

KING’S AIRPORT ‘WILL BE UNUSABLE’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/06/kings-airport-will-be-unusable.html

DOUBTS OVER PROSPECTS FOR AIRPORT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2012/06/doubts-over-prospects-for-airport.html