As South Africa readies itself for another bumper festive season and people start winding down for the holidays, airports around the country are bracing for an influx of visitors.
On just three days over the festive period, more than 110,000 tourists are expected to pass through OR Tambo, King Shaka International, and Cape Town International airports.
Today alone, 58,042 people will move through OR Tambo airport.
Tourism and migration statistics for November are scheduled for release on Tuesday (tomorrow) and will give a better idea of what kind of tourism turnout the country can expect over the next few weeks, but the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) is already experiencing its peak season.
This period started at the end of October and will run until the end of March 2024. The group is now ramping up to ensure smooth operations and a seamless travel experience during the busy December-January time frame, says chief executive Mpumi Mpofu.
“We are ready to face the festive season and I’m confident that our carefully planned response to the massive numbers of passengers who will be passing through our airport network is more than adequate to ensure a safe and comfortable journey for holidaymakers.”
These are the busiest days and weeks expected at the country’s major airports during the festive season:
OR Tambo International Airport
– Busiest period: December 11 to 17
– Busiest day: Today (December 11) – 577 aircraft carrying 58,042 passengers will arrive and depart from the airport
Cape Town International Airport
– Busiest period: January 1 to 7
– Busiest day: January 1 – 264 aircraft carrying 32,750 passengers will arrive and depart
King Shaka International Airport
– Busiest period: December 11 to 17
– Busiest day: December 14 – 131 aircraft carrying 19,602 passengers will arrive and depart
Mpofu says ACSA has seen a steady recovery over the past three years, with a growth of 83 percent in passenger numbers and 87 percent in air traffic movements as of the end of October. There has also been an 18 percent increase in passenger numbers and nine percent rise in air traffic movements since 2022.
“In all three of our market segments – domestic, regional, and international – new routes and route expansions by both local and foreign airlines continue to support the recovery of passenger traffic. This is evident from the fact that in FY2022/23, the overall growth of 33 percent in capacity led to a 50 percent increase in passenger traffic.
“Globally, the recovery in air traffic continued to be firm, which supported our own recovery. By the end of March 2023, industry-wide revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) – a measure of air passenger traffic, increased by 52.4 percent year-on-year (YoY) and reached 88 percent of March 2019 levels.”
Mpofu notes that ACSA’s three main airports – OR Tambo International, Cape Town International, and King Shaka International – continue to account for 85 percent of all air passenger traffic in South Africa, with OR Tambo International accounting for 49 percent of all departing traffic.
Regional inland airports such as Upington, Kimberley, and Bram Fischer (Bloemfontein), continue to record good recovery rates, mainly as a result of slow normalisation in business travel and the core ‘visiting friends and relatives’ (VFR) segment. Coastal airports are more reliant on leisure traffic and have thus not fared as well due to a significant reduction in leisure travel because of the increases in ticket prices as well as the impact high inflation and interest rates had on discretionary spending.
Cape Town International Airport was the major beneficiary in terms of international passengers, with throughput exceeding pre-Covid levels for the first time in February and March 2023.
“This was partly due to the normalisation in the number of visitors from Europe during our summer months and partly due to route expansions and new capacity favouring Cape Town,” she says.
Meanwhile, Stats SA’s tourism and migration data for October shows that 1.88 million foreign tourists travelled to, from, and within the country. The distribution of overseas tourists was:
– Europe: 122,599 (64.6 percent)
– North America: 33,631 (17.7 percent)
– Asia: 17, 87 (9.1 percent)
– Australasia: 8,446 (4.5 percent)
– Central and South America: 4,980 (2.6 percent)
– Middle East: 2,835 (1.5 percent)
The 10 leading overseas countries in terms of the number of tourists visiting South Africa in October 2023 were
1. UK: 30,424 (16 percent)
2. USA: 28,011 (14.8 percent)
3. Germany: 27,512 (14.5 percent)
4. The Netherlands: 14,417 (7.6 percent)
5. France: 12,940 (6.8 percent)
6. Australia: 6,879 (3.6 percent)
7. Canada, 5,620 (3.0 percent);
8. India: 5,601 (3.0 percent)
9. Switzerland: 5,038 (2.7 percent)
10. Belgium: 5,017 (2.6 percent)
Tourists from these 10 countries constituted 74.5 percent of all tourists from overseas countries.
“A comparison of movements in the 10 leading countries between October 2022 and October 2023 shows that the number of tourists increased for nine of the 10 leading countries. The Netherlands (47.1 percent) and Canada (46.7 percent) showed the highest year-on-year increase,” Stats SA says.
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