Proposed fees hike miffs aviation industry
Brian Benza | Friday February 24, 2017 17:06
Plans to hike the fees and reactions towards such actions came out vividly at a vibrant stakeholders forum hosted by CAAB here this week.
Manager, International Relations and Statistics at CAAB, Monti-Carlo Tlagae told BusinessWeek that they plan to increase fees and charges by an average 25% this year before effecting another 15% hike annually until 2020.
“Our target is to almost double our revenue by 2020 to P225 million per year from the current P115 million per year. Our fees and charges are currently 150% below what our counterparts in the region charge. We have to recover costs,” said Tlagae.
The 2004 CAA Act requires the authority to perform its functions in accordance with sound commercial and financial principles, and ensure as far as possible, that its revenue is sufficient to meet the expenditure.
Among some of the charges levied by CAAB on operators include parking fees, airport fees, handling rates, landing fees, navigation fees, passenger tax, lighting charge and approach control fees.
But aviation industry players feel that any further hikes in charges will only serve to throttle an industry that is still underdeveloped with only one scheduled domestic airline and many small operators that feel overregulated.
Business Botswana vice president, Gobusamang Keebine said for an industry of Botswana’s size, any further hikes in fees and charges will act as a barrier to new entrants into the market.
“In Botswana we have very few operators; we have to nurture the industry until such a time it is competitive. It is too expensive to fly here,” he said.
Keebine cited the withdrawal of Kenya Airways from the Gaborone route as one of the effects of Botswana high charges.
“We are told Kenya Airways was paying $800 for a Boeing 737 plane in charges here while it pays $400 at OR Tambo. That’s why they decided to divert and fly directly to Johannesburg from Nairobi and put the Gaborone bound passengers on Air Botswana,” said Keebine.
CAAB chief executive officer, Geoffrey Moshabesha however dismissed the assertion that Kenya Airways left Botswana due to high airport charges, saying the airline discontinued the Gaborone route because of its own management and financial challenges.
General manager at Wilderness Air Botswana, Alex Henderson says they have started to see a decline in the number of large chartered aircraft landing at the Maun Airport.
“The large chartered aircraft that bring in tourists now prefer to land at Victoria Falls and bring in the tourists into the Delta using the small aircraft,” he said.
“They say it’s too expensive to park such large aircraft at Maun airport for a week while waiting for the tourists in the delta.”