According to the Airports Company South Africa, around 10.4mn two-way passengers passed through Cape Town International Airport’s terminals in 2024, a 7% jump from the previous year. Of these, three million were international. Air volumes also recorded growth, with a rise of 27% for the first 10 months of 2024, compared to numbers for 2023. These figures are set to grow, with Air France, British Airways, and others, looking to increase seasonal flight frequency and capacity – and even launch new routes – to Cape Town this year.
This expansion of aviation activity is exactly what Nick Ferguson is banking on. As the executive MD of rsa.AERO and executive director of Cape Winelands Aero, Ferguson is the man behind the Cape Winelands Airport project. The project will see the Fisantekraal Airfield near Durbanville on the northern outskirts of Cape Town transformed into a modern airport. The airfield was built in 1943 to protect the South African coastline during World War II and served as a base for Lockheed Ventura bombers. Today, it’s used for flight training and recreational flying. Ferguson, a property developer, came across the airport four years ago when he was looking for a piece of land for another project.
After tracking down the owner – who, as it happened, had died in an airplane accident – he bought the land, which is 25km away from Cape Town International, and started planning what could be done with the airfield. “One doesn’t just wake up one day and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to build a big airport’. It’s a journey,” he says. Given the scale of the project, the necessary licensing, the suitability of the usable land, he gathered a team of aviation and airport experts and started considering the possibilities, such as extending the runway so that bigger planes can land.
One doesn’t just wake up one day and say, ‘Hey, I think I’m going to build a big airport’. It’s a journey.
Nick Ferguson, rsa.AERO
Ferguson is hoping to establish CWA as an alternate airport to Cape Town International, which is an important part of the proposed airport’s funding model. Every aircraft has to file a flight plan, including its route, passenger load, fuel amount, and an alternate airport in case of an emergency.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re flying a private plane or a passenger plane, local or international, before you take off, you have to nominate an alternate destination airport, because if there's a problem at your planned destination, you need to be able to land somewhere else,” he says. But when an alternate airport is nominated, it needs to be able to accommodate the aircraft, and the plane has to have enough fuel to reach it.
At present, larger planes like Boeing 777s, or the Airbus A380, will select OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg because it’s the only other airport that can handle such a large aircraft. “A plane like this would have to carry about 10 extra tonnes of fuel just in case it has to be diverted to Johannesburg. And it will burn around four of those 10 tonnes simply because it's heavier and less efficient. Those four tonnes of fuel cost around R100 000,” he says. “Beyond the waste and the cost, there's also lost revenue. If the plane is able to safely land at a much closer alternate airport and it didn't have to carry the 10 tonnes of dead weight, it could carry 10 tonnes of cargo and get paid for it,” he says. But rsa.AERO isn’t developing CWA to save airlines money, and it’s proposing that the new airport receives a portion of the savings. Ferguson says this will be called the “Green Skies Partnership” because airlines will be reducing their CO emissions. According to data modelling using 2019 air traffic data, 60mn kilograms of CO emissions could be avoided if flights could be diverted to a second, alternate airport near Cape Town. Ferguson also wants CWA to be one of the greenest airports in the world, with plans for the facility to have off-grid water, sanitation and electricity.
He says CWA will cost around R8bn to build, and is being developed on a commercial basis without any government funding. The Green Skies Partnership is another aspect of its funding model. It’s also envisaged that CWA will be able to take A380s, which, among other factors, will mean extending the runway to 3.5km. It now has four runways, two of which are not in use, and two others, of 700 and 900 metres.
It also plans to build a passenger terminal that can accommodate 5.2 million annual passengers, with the core goal of establishing a cohesive link with Cape Town.
Ferguson wants the CWA to be the first airport in Africa with a digital air traffic control tower. This uses high-definition cameras and sensors to monitor and control air traffic. These towers collate information, including radar, weather, and other sensor data, and provide a comprehensive view of airport operations.
Digital towers show controllers real-time visual data and operational information and controllers can manage multiple airports from a central location. Some digital towers are incorporating AI-powered object detection and video analysis. While a one- or two-minute delay might not matter to passengers, airplanes on the ground cost airlines money. According to a Boeing study, if an airline reduces the turnaround time on an 800km flight from 35 minutes to 25 minutes, it could complete almost 200 extra flights in a year.
But before any of these innovations and efficiencies can be realised, rsa.AERO needs to get environmental authorisation to break ground. It has just completed the public participation process as part of CWA’s environmental impact assessment and now needs to collate and respond to all the comments before submitting the final assessments to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. Should everything go according to plan, Ferguson expects construction to start in early 2026 and for the airport to be operational by 2028. While he has been involved in many big construction projects in the past – from developing The Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock to more recently transforming The River Club into the Riverlands complex, where Amazon has its head office – he does feel that this project is a little different. “This project has potential to create jobs and to boost economic activity across the entire province, so the knock-on effects of what we’re doing here are huge.” He estimates that it can create around 60 000 jobs.
"Sentiment around the project has been amazing. Of course, there have been objections. Some of the most significant commentators on the project are housing developers located near us, a chicken farm in the area, and Airports Company South Africa."
Alderman James Vos, mayoral committee member for economic growth in the City of Cape Town, thinks the development is a promising one for the province, and could unlock tourism, trade, and job creation opportunities. Having worked with airlines to boost air access to Cape Town, Vos believes that the airport could bolster the local and international aviation industry and says that this kind of strategic infrastructure is important in strengthening the region’s economic resilience and global competitiveness.
* Article first published on brainstorm.itweb.co.za
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