In a Standing Committee on Economic Opportunities, Tourism, and Agriculture, which took place on 6 June, Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) revealed that it loses R25 million ($1.8m) a year in duty free shopping revenue because international visitors are spending close to two hours moving through Home Affairs’ passport control.

 

CTIA says that the number of immigration officers available for duty at the counters decreased from 82 to 68 despite an increase of 750,000 inbound ‘flight seats’ compared with 2015.

 

DUTY FREE IS ECONOMIC DRIVER

 

In an exclusive interview with TRBusiness, Beverley Schäfer, Member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament and DA Western Cape Spokesperson on Economic Opportunities, Tourism, and Agriculture, explained that the loss in revenue is not the only negative impact being felt.

 

“Duty free, while it might be a profit-making business on the one hand, is certainly where the airport provides jobs to the local people and so that’s how the airport, in a way, justifies that space.”

 

“As CTIA is the first touch point of entry for international travellers, it is also the first experience that travellers have of Cape Town and South Africa at large.

 

“Passenger congestion and severe delays dissuade visitors from returning to our shores. The knock-on effect of passenger delays is that the airport’s duty free shopping experience is largely neglected as prospective shoppers are held up in queues, and unable to purchase goods before their flights. This kills economic activity and threatens thousands of jobs in the Western Cape.”

 

As mentioned, Home Affairs, the government department, has lowered the amount of already-reduced officials (due to nation-wide staffing constraints) handling passport control which has actually resulted in “untenable situations in the airport”, insists Schäfer.

 

“So around peak times, say between 10-11am when we receive a lot of flights and a lot of flights depart, there may be only five officials processing. So sometimes the buses that are collecting passengers that have just arrived cannot drop them off into the airport because of the masses of people already waiting to go through passport control.”

 

 

The average wait time for inbound international passengers at CTIA’s passport control is 27.38 minutes; in excess of the international best practice average of 10 minutes.

 

The average wait for outbound international passengers is currently 12.06 minutes, which is also far above the international best practice average of five minutes.

 

INTERNATIONAL PAX +20%

 

To add to the enormous pressure already being placed on the airport, Wesgro – the official Tourism, Trade & Investment promotion agency for Cape Town and the Western Cape – further revealed that CTIA experienced a 20% growth in international terminal passengers, superseding the world average of 8%.

 

“I will be writing to the Western Cape Minister of Economic Opportunities, Tourism, and Agriculture, Alan Winde, to engage with National Treasury over concerns surrounding the diminishing number of Home Affairs officials employed at the CTIA, when the growth of Cape Town Air Access is expected to secure 150,000 more international inbound seats from three new flight routes in 2018 alone,” said Schäfer.

 

The Air Access project was effectively a head-hunting exercise for direct flights into Cape Town and not via Johannesburg.

“Within three years 13 new flights directly into Cape Town Airport have been launched, which has driven the huge 20% increase of 750,000 seats,” added Schäfer.

“Another 150,000 seats are going to be added this year, so you can see that tourism is going in one way, but Home Affairs is going in the other.”

 

Click to enlarge graph.