ACSA: Wars, geopolitics and US tariffs weighing on aviation
The CEO of Airport Company South Africa says global conflicts and shifting geopolitics have significantly impacted the aviation sector and ACSA’s performance in the past financial year.
"Typically, what happens in the war zones is that they become no-fly zones, and the restriction of aviation above Gaza and Ukraine places an inordinate cost on the aviation and airlines that fly across those regions because they have to divert and go all the way round, avoiding those regions,” said Mpumi Mpofu.
"So very often airlines take a decision to reschedule, reduce the number of flights that are high-cost, or to cancel them and to minimise that impact on their baseline."
Mpofu says the company has introduced strategic initiatives to navigate the challenging climate.
Global air traffic at the end of March recovered to 9.5 billion passengers, while South Africa remains just short of pre-pandemic levels at 92% of 2019 figures.
READ: ACSA reports R1.1 bn profit for 2024/25
Mpofu spoke at the release of ACSA’s annual financial results, which revealed the company posted a record net profit of R1.1 billion.
She says tariffs imposed by the US on South Africa are now beginning to affect the sector.
" One of the negative impacts that this has had relates to our overall performance on aeronautical revenue, which in the fourth quarter we could have seen a surge, but because of this global economic uncertainty, the fourth quarter on aeronautical revenue was showing a decline.
"We also have seen a decline in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa in air cargo and business travel, and uncertainty in infrastructure investments and cross-border airport partnerships."
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