PCB Blog - Airlink out of PMB
Airlink out of PMB |
| 2011/03/09 |
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Melanie Veness: PCB CEO I find that whenever I am required to fly to Johannesburg, I have to prepare myself mentally a few of days before the scheduled flight. I have to brace myself, not because I am afraid of flying, but because of the enormous effort required to get there from Pietermaritzburg. We may be linked by the N3, but doing business in Johannesburg has never been easy for Maritzburgers. If one needs to catch the early flight out of King Shaka International Airport at 6 am on one of the budget carriers (being sensitive to costs), and one needs to be there an hour before the flight, it means a 5 am airport arrival. Not too bad you think, but now factor in the hour and a quarter required for the N3/N2 trek. Ok, you leave home at 3.45 am. Now, if you wish to look half-way presentable, then you need to drag yourself out of your warm bed at around 3 am. A long car ride, several caffeine-laced cups of coffee and an hour-long flight later, you arrive at Oliver Tambo International Airport. You hire a vehicle, programme your destination into your Garmin and brace yourself, once more, to face the Johannesburg traffic in rush hour. Needless to say, that by the time that you have covered a couple of kilometers your anxiety levels are at an all-time high, because you aren’t really certain that you’ll make your meeting at all, never mind on time. When eventually you arrive at your destination, you’re all out on humour and feel like you’ve already worked a full day. You are constantly conscious of time, because you need to leave in good time to make the return trip . You simply can’t chance the rush-hour traffic on the way back to the airport – you might miss your flight. Once you arrive back in Durban, you have to collect your car from the long-term parking and face the rush-hour traffic on the N2 and N3. If you add up all the inconvenience, time and stress, it would probably be better and cheaper to drive straight to Johannesburg from Pietermaritzburg – if you left at 3.45 am, you’d be in Johannesburg by around 7 am, which is actually earlier than your flight lands. Last week Chamber president Tinus Havinga and I had to attend a meeting in Rosebank, and dreading the whole journey, I decided that I would try and find a better way of getting there. What about flying out of Pietermaritzburg, I thought? A large amount of money is being invested by the Province to upgrade our airport and Airlink are currently offering cheap flights out of Pietermaritzburg – around R900 return (depending on the airport taxes). Now, flying out of Pietermaritzburg never used to be much of an option, because the flights were so much more expensive than the budget airlines, and flying in those little planes required nerves of steel. Even if you paid the higher prices and braved the little planes, you would risk not getting home until midnight, because overflights – due to mist - to Durban were par for the course. Let me tell you that things have changed! What a pleasure my whole journey was – the 7.30 flight meant an airport arrival of 6.45am. The airport is about 10 minutes from home – so easy journey there. Parking is plentiful, shaded and reasonable. The hassle-free checking in by friendly staff and the comfortable roomy seats on the new jet were much appreciated. We barely had time to drink our coffee on the flight, when the captain announced that we would be starting our decent! At Oliver Tambo we hopped onto the very impressive Gautrain, and in 10 minutes we were in Sandton, where we hired a car. An hour after landing we were at our scheduled meeting – a completely hassle-free journey! What a pleasure. The new landing equipment at the airport has ensured that the risk of an overflight is very small and this is supported by the recent statistics, so no problems there. Ease of access is key for economic development and it is now very easy to do business in Johannesburg. This journey reinforced for me how critical governments role of creating an enabling environment is. It is now a pleasure to do business in Gauteng, and I am sure that many more trips will be made, as people become aware of the ease of the journey, there and back. |
| Tags: Flying(1) airport(2) Johannesburg(1) Pietermaritzburg(6) Airlink(2) Gautrain(2) |
| Comments |
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Sharon 2011/03/22 02:08:02 PM This is an accurate description of the mission involved in travelling to Johannesburg from PMB, however, the flights from Oribi are very expensive once you add the airport taxes - making it extremely costly for small businesses. How can we change this? It seems the demand is there because the flights are always full - but realistically this is aimed at big-budget business executives. |
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Melanie Veness 2011/03/23 09:44:46 AM The flights from Pietermaritzburg Airport are very affordable at the moment – around R1000 return (depending on airport taxes). It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Airlink have dropped their prices for a bit, to increase numbers, so that they can afford to offer better rates as a norm. They do want to keep the rates reasonable. I hope that they’ll get the support that they need – it’s such a pleasure to fly out of Pietermaritzburg. |
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Ashley 2011/04/01 05:50:05 PM Im not sure who will be able to answer this, but will ACSA ever take over the running of Pietermaritzburg Airport? |
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Melanie Veness 2011/04/05 10:41:05 AM We are not aware of ACSA having ever shown an interest in managing our airport. We think that it is unlikely that they would. It may not be in our best interests for them to manage our airport, because their charges would be significantly higher than the status quo. |
