Outgoing Airlink CEO and MD Rodger Foster has cautioned against centralising services such as refuelling, ground handling, security and other airport-based services, saying it is negatively affecting airlines’ ability to drive down unit costs.
He said airport operators needed to listen to airlines and prioritise their needs.
Addressing the annual summit of the Board of Airline Representatives of SA Foster also described a backdrop of market and industry uncertainties driven by “seismic geopolitical shifts”.
In SA, the ground handling services industry, while recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, faces challenges including soaring fuel costs, and reduced capacity, affecting recovery efforts. The hindrances have often resulted in cancelled and delayed flights affecting airline profitability.
“Our gateways, infrastructure, passenger and cargo processes need to be simpler, easier, a lot more efficient and cost-effective. At the same time, we must pay close attention to our competition and changing trends so that we do not fall further behind and lose our relevance.”
Foster said he wanted to see the same apply to Air Traffic & Navigation Services (ATNS) and other infrastructure and commercial service providers. Industry bodies have warned that ATNS, for one, was “a crisis waiting to happen” and urged fast-tracking of the hiring of airspace designers and air traffic controllers.
Airlines are still denied almost 300 instrument flight procedures that were fine to use until mid-July 2024 when ATNS missed its deadline to submit the revalidation paperwork to the SA Civil Aviation Authority for reapproval.
“ATNS must plan ahead so that when it has cleared the present backlog, we do not crash headfirst into a recurring crisis every couple of years,” said Foster.
“ATNS has created a serious safety risk. As airlines, we are doing our best to mitigate it. Instrument flight procedures are fundamental to operational safety.”
“And in case anyone’s forgotten, airlines must still pay statutory charges for those services — with regulated tariff increases of up to 24% — even though they are being denied to us.”
ATNS has created a serious safety risk. As airlines, we are doing our best to mitigate it. Instrument flight procedures are fundamental to operational safety.
— Rodger Foster, Airlink CEO and MD
The ATNS issued a statement on Saturday saying transport minister Barbara Creecy was to meet its board and management on Monday after the precautionary suspension of ATNS CEO Nozipho Mdawe last week.
A ministerial intervention team was appointed earlier to investigate the source of problems at ATNS which have led to flight delays at various local airports. Creecy has ordered the ATNS board to appoint an independent law firm to investigate Mdawe’s conduct.
Foster also raised the need for the SA Weather Service to modernise its forecast and modelling tools.
He furthermore said there was a need to digitise passenger processes, ensuring that air transport rules and regulations were applied even-handedly.
“To realise our full potential, we need to be collaborative, co-operative, co-ordinated, coherent, cohesive — but competitive and not collusive — as an entire industry ecosystem,” he told leaders of the aviation sector in the country.
Foster lamented the difficulties faced by the Single African Air Transport Market, an initiative launched in 1988 to liberalise the African aviation industry and to transform it into a single market.
“After 38 years, it seems more of a dud than a silver bullet … Political words have been plentiful. It’s the will that’s lacking,” he said.
“It is still impossible to operate freely within the continent. There are, however, exceptions, pockets of excellence … [yet] we continually see some African countries applying extortionate operator permit and handling rules and fees as backdoor protectionism.”
He said SA’s air transport sector had immense potential, “yet it is like a baggage trolley with its wheels pointing in different directions”.
Foster is expected to leave the airline at end-March after 33 years at the helm of Airlink, handing over the reigns to CFO De Villiers Engelbrecht. He will, however, remain a shareholder and serve as a nonexecutive director.
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