After the Bell: Acsa’s Mpumi Mpofu is making SA’s airports glamorous and profitable again

When I was growing up, travelling on a plane was literally the height of excitement. Even having someone in your family (gasp!) who had been on a plane was something worth telling your frenemies at school.

In fact, going to the airport just to fetch someone was incredibly exciting. I mean, you wouldn’t always see a plane, but you might. And maybe even see it take off!

I retained that excitement right until I first went on a Mango flight.

Now, I think flying can just be a bit of a hack. And that’s not just because of my entirely rational fear that I might be seated next to Carl Niehaus. A big part of this is your experience at the airport.

I was just yesterday years old when I realised this, but I’ve come to understand how airports are all about class.

None of the adverts for flying or airlines or airports shows you anything close to reality. There are always videos of attractive people in their mid-thirties, just young enough to still look glamorous and just old enough not to be asked if their dad paid for their ticket.

The entire lounge system really shows this. People do all sorts of things to get access to lounges.

And I think, in our society, given that it is all about insiders and outsiders, that’s completely understandable. I have limited access to a particular lounge and I’ve bumped into all sorts of interesting people there. Sometimes they are people I really never want to see again, sometimes it’s a politician or someone in public life and it’s a good moment for a quiet chat. And sometimes, gloriously, it means newsletter editor John Stupart and I get to have our own pre-Gathering before the main event.

Yesterday, the company that controls most of our airports, Airports Company South Africa (Acsa), reported something that hardly ever happens. As a state-owned entity, it explained that it had in fact made a profit. And a hefty one: R1.1-billion.

I mean, that’s almost enough to buy tickets to a Springbok rugby Test for your extended family.

I was fascinated to see that 49% of the company’s revenue did not come from aeronautical services. In other words, it made an absolute fortune from the rent for the shopping malls it hosts and, of course, from parking.

My thoughts on those parking fees are, dear reader, not suitable for a family publication, so I will spare you those.

Now, Acsa CEO Mpumi Mpofu has much to celebrate here. Clearly the financials are working, and working well. 

But she did also point to “operational headwinds”. In other words, there are clearly many problems. And it’s those problems that you experience when you go through most of our airports (the main airport that is not owned by Acsa is Lanseria).

Read more: Grounded optimism — Can Acsa’s turnaround take off?

To make it more complicated, there are major sections of our international airports that Acsa doesn’t control. If you face a long queue to re-enter the country, that needs to be laid at the door of Home Affairs and the Border Management Authority. If your plane is delayed, well, that might well be due to Air Traffic and Navigation Services.

Read more: Crucial Air Traffic and Navigation Services faces payroll and skills crisis

And I presume Acsa does not have the authority to remove what often looks like a permanent installation of Ekurhuleni Metro Police officers, who check licence discs at the entrance to OR Tambo’s domestic departures terminal (do they really have nothing better to do?).

But as one listener pointed out on The Money Show last night, Acsa is absolutely in charge of the toilets. And if they stink, that’s on Acsa.

My own impression of OR Tambo is that it’s fine… but only just. And things might well start to fall apart soon.

Mpofu is keenly aware of this, and has confirmed that Acsa is planning to spend more than R20-billion on our airports in the next five years.

That’s a huge amount of money. I almost have to ask: what are we going to buy with it? I mean, I would like to think you could get a pretty good radar installation for that. And I presume we are not building new runways. Those travelators must cost more than I thought.

This does seem to show a lot of confidence about the future. While I have been quite miserable about the state of our middle classes of late, perhaps Acsa is just a lot more optimistic than I am.

I hope they’re right.

I hope our airports get spruced up, and improved, and work well to give people a wonderful welcome to Mzansi. 

And I hope that going to South African airports becomes exciting again. DM