The recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic at the Bram Fischer Airport is happening at a much faster pace than anticipated.
This is according to the Airport Manager Thabo Phateng at a media conference held on Tuesday.
The chief executive officer of the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), Mpumi Mpofu, visited Bloemfontein earlier in the week as part of a national roadshow to talk about the recovery plans of the nine international airports.
Phateng said the passanger numbers were almost back at the rate of 355 000 per year at Bram Fischer, as it was in 2019. In 2021 only 73 000 passangers moved through the airport.
“The recovery predicted was that we would be back at our previous number in 2025, but last year we already had 318 000 passangers moving through the airport,” Phateng explained.
“All the projects that had been planned before the pandemic came to a halt, but can now be rethinked and put into action.”
He said the master plan would be reviewed and new developments would soon be begun.
One of them is an extra stand to be added to extend the number of four parking bays for airplanes to five. He said this will be completed in a year from now.
He said there was also lots of possibilities to extend the airports’ sevice to cargo planes, and plans around this are in an advanced stage.
As part of the maintenance and and extention plans, Nombuso Msomi of the ACSA’s procurement department explained that they were focusing on getting more small and medium businesses (SMME’s) involved in the procurement process.
Nancy De Sousa, president of the Mangaung Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), representing a wide range of SMME’s, said at the meeting local businesses have a important roll te play.
“The emphasis will now be on localisation and empowerment of the Free State community,” Phateng said.
“All ACSA airports will now have a new focus on regional integration to support the local economy.”
Msomi said the ACSA procurement plan was now focussed on buying South African products, with each airport supporting its own economic region.
Phateng said there was a number of contracts at the airport that needed to be renewed. Projects that had been carried over from the previous year in which Bram Fischer would like to get SMME’s involved, include civil, electrical and mechanical works, as well as the provision of general supplies.
