SOUTH AFRICA’S INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENTS FOR THE FIFA WORLD CUP 2010 PAY OFF HANDSOMELY
(Posted 23rd March 2016)
When Skytrax, the world’s leading survey and ranking organisation in the world for airlines and airports, announced the winners for the African continent, did once again South Africa reap big. The country still benefits from the building and modernization of new airports for the FIFA World Cup 2010, putting to shame doubters who had opposed the games and the expense involved for it.
Cape Town, one of the world’s great destinations, was named as the continent’s best airport and for having the best airport staff in Africa too. Runner up was Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo in the best airport category, followed in third place by Durban’s King Shaka International Airport.
Fourth in Africa was, again no surprise there, Mauritius’ Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport before two more South African airports came in fifth and sixth respectively, East London and Port Elizabeth.
A surprise seventh was Cairo, before Bloemfontein once again showed South Africa’s dominance with an eight place.
Notably has the work done in the Seychelles at the international airport pay off as the archipelago’s main aviation gateway on Mahe came in ninth in the list of the top ten. The final spot was then taken by Marrakech.
In the Best Airport Staff rankings did Reunion’s Roland Garros International Airport take a surprise 10th place while Nairobi claimed an equally surprising 9th place, defying the trend of bad publicity for Jomo Kenyatta International Airport of past years.
As mentioned before did the top ten see Cape Town take the top slot, followed then by Durban, Johannesburg, Seychelles, Mauritius, East London, Windhoek and Port Elizabeth, Nairobi and Reunion.
Kigali’s international airport has according to information from Rwanda hopes that when the airport expansion and modernization is complete in a few months time, they will stand a good chance to make it into the top ten next year, a hope not entirely without merit. The same can be said for Nairobi where earlier this week a brand new arrival section for Terminal 1A was opened, meeting the latest standards in airport security and operational requirements which will see JKIA get the FAA approval at last for Category 1 status, allowing the launch of direct flights to and from the United States.
In a related bit of information sourced did Africa’s top airport Cape Town come in as number 22 in the world with Johannesburg and Durban ranking number 30 and 35 respectively, a positive result for Africa and a sign that global excellence can very well be achieved on our continent.
