Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities:

The broad mandate of the Cape Town Air Access (CTAA) project is to intensify and sustain the Western Cape air access to targeted, international and domestic markets to improve economic competitiveness and promote job creation in the Province. At the outset of the project, the attention    has been on passenger flights but for the past three years, and especially since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, air cargo has also     become an important area, and the aim is to promote Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) as an international gateway for air cargo services.

The CTAA project, therefore, focuses on increasing air connectivity and capacity into the Western Cape Province through bespoke negotiations with partner airlines. Export promotion and growth is, therefore, linked-by-association to air connectivity and airline capacity increases and only relevant to air cargo and not all export freight for this specific project. The project, therefore, does not have specific export commitments or contracts that it negotiates and secures, but provides the necessary connectivity to enable export growth.

With regard to the Air Access Programme and the commitment to leverage the programme to support export growth:

(a) How many export commitments or contracts have been secured through the programme in the (i) 2020/21 financial year and (ii) 2021/22 financial year to date, (b) what are the details of the commitments or contracts and (c) what is the monetary value of the secured commitments;

1. 1. 1. The Cape Town Air Access programme commenced an air cargo strategy during the 2020/21 financial year, with increased emphasis in the air access recovery plan approved June 2020. The air cargo approach has mostly been focused on recovering the belly freight capacity of the route network for Cape Town International Airport by concentrating efforts to recover the network of passenger flights. With the return of each route, both passenger and belly freight capacity has been added to the network. This has resulted in growing utilisation of the available belly freight capacity by the freight forwarders (as well as exporters and distributors) as and when the capacity becomes available. Route network security has been of utmost importance to ensure the recovery and restoration of passenger and belly freight capacity.

The Wesgro Export programme aims to grow export values and jobs by securing export commitments for exporters throughout the year. This is done by way of various initiatives to promote and facilitate exports. The Cape Town Air Access programme is working closely with the Wesgro Export programme to ensure that exporters are benefitting from and utilising the available air cargo capacity.

(i) and (ii) (b)

Air Access’s cargo programme commenced in 2020/21 and its performance is measured in export value relating to the cargo in the belly of planes. During the 2020/21 financial year international passenger flights did not operate for six months between April and October due to government restrictions on air travel. This has had a significant detrimental impact on air cargo exports, as almost 98% of international air cargo at Cape Town International Airport transported belly-freight in passenger aircraft. Ethiopian Airlines did, however, operate a once-weekly full-freighter service during this period, providing around 30 flights, as did several passenger repatriation flights offering belly-cargo space.

For the 2021/22 financial year to date (Q1, Apr-June available figures) Cape Town Air Access assisted in securing the return of the following passenger carriers, during the specified period:

• • Qatar Airways from Doha
  • Turkish Airlines from Istanbul
  • KLM from Amsterdam
  • Lufthansa Airlines from Frankfurt
  • Ethiopian Airlines from Addis Ababa

                                (i) and (ii) (c)

Despite the challenging circumstances in 2020/21, cargo exported from CTIA still amounted to R8.44 billion, however this was 22% lower than the year before as a result of restrictions on air travel.

For the 2021/22 financial year to date (Q1, Apr-June available figures) cargo exports at CTIA increased by 113% compared to the same period in 2020/21, which amounts to an increase of R1.14 billion compared to the same period in 2020/21.

2. Whether there are ongoing efforts through the Air Access Programme to secure further commitments; if so, what are the relevant details?

For the remainder of 2021/22, the following airlines have recommitted to operating passenger services into CTIA:

• Air France started operations on 31 October from Paris.
• Lufthansa Airlines started a seasonal Munich service on 1 November (until the end of April 2022).
• British Airways resumed the London Heathrow service on 3 November.
• Etihad Airways will commence scheduled services to Abu Dhabi for two months from 25 November.
• United Airlines will return with seasonal service from New York/Newark from 1 December until 26 March 2022.
• Virgin Atlantic will return with a seasonal London Heathrow service from 17 December until April 2022.
• TAP Air Portugal will commence their inaugural Lisbon service in November 2022, providing access to Southern Europe.

All of these mentioned operations will add belly- freight capacity into the market thereby boosting the air cargo export capacity and in so doing potential for air cargo volume increases for the Province. In addition to the above, Cape Town Air Access is working directly with the Wesgro Export Promotion unit to create greater linkages and access between the airlines and the exporters through various initiatives to raise awareness and utilisation of the available air cargo capacity to the benefit of Western Cape exporters.

(673)