Airports can drive economic growth

FOR most people an airport is viewed as nothing more than a transit point in order to get to a destination.

Airports offer significant opportunities as they play the role of magnets for industrial settlements and foreign investment companies, according to the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA).

Good air links to domestic and world-wide markets have great importance for companies from growing sectors of industry, such as logistics, high-tech and biotechnology as well as service providers.

The growing attractiveness of an airport does not only interest business people, but also catches the attention of tourists.

By promoting air traffic, businesses are connected with their existing and prospective markets and people are brought together.

This means that airports are major regional employers helping to stimulate the business environment.

ACSA says companies affiliated to airports perform significant entrepreneurial activities, make investments, create jobs and income, and stimulate further indirect investments.

“More people are realising the economic benefits that airports provide. Increasingly, efforts are being made to integrate airports into the cities in which they are located.

“They are becoming part of the very fabric of the city, a gateway not just for passengers and cargo but a hub around which many other related industries can be integrated.

“This evolving role of airports is taking place through the development of what is known as an ‘aerotropolis’.

“There are various definitions as to what aerotropolis is, but in short it refers to the layout, infrastructure, and economy of a subregion within a city cen- tred on an airport.

“An aerotropolis is about global connectivity to the outside world and an airport serving numerous functions within the city.

“The aerotropolis changes the role of an airport from an infrastructure provider to a service provider, facilitating access to markets while simultaneously boosting the local economy.”

According to ACSA, such aerotropoli have either evolved organically or have been a planned intervention.

“O.R. Tambo International Airport this has been both an organic development and planned intervention.

“Other relevant stakeholders are also being en- gaged to roll out similar plans at King Shaka International Airport and Cape Town International Airport.”

In September last year, the City of Ekurhuleni announced the development of the Ekurhuleni O.R.

Tambo aerotropolis. ACSA is working in partnership with the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) to affirm O.R. Tambo International Airport’s readiness to be an African aerotropolis.

The aerotropolis project is one of the City of Ekurhuleni’s flagship projects and will become the first aerotropolis in Africa.

EMM took a strategic decision that the aerotropolis concept be pursued, devel- oped further and implemented to leverage the economic benefits of having the busiest airport on the African continent, the O.R. Tambo International Airport, located within its boundaries.

ACSA says the physical area related to an aerotropolis is often defined as a 20-to30-minute distance to the airport by a mode of transport.

However, the economic impact of the aerotropolis reaches up to a distance of 60km.

As opposed to the aerotropolis, the Airport City is the area owned and managed by ACSA inside the airport perimeter fence, while the aerotropolis is the area ‘outside of the fence’, but centred on the airport with the emphasis on logistics services.

The value proposition of an aerotropolis includes economic growth, an integrated-public transport network and spatial planning, as well as improved logistics handling.

ACSA says expansion of the urban edge to create greenfield development opportunities, new city designs and improving transport networks are a few of many key opportunities in the economic clusters for an aerotropolis.

There have been many successful aerotropolis developments around the world from which South Africa can draw experience and learn.

“The key factor is the planning of the aerotropolis. If done correctly, it can bring enormous competitive and social returns to business and the society alike.

“However, allowing it to evolve organically, as it inevitably will in the absence of planning, will likely limit those returns.

“In the future, airports will no longer be marginalised outcasts on the fringes of a city.

“So it is incumbent upon industry players to help various partners facilitate that process,” says ACSA.