LANSERIA International Airport is set to undergo a major multimillion rand upgrade to its facilities.
The expansion programme will include four additional departure lounges, increased parking facilities and improvements to the main runway.
“The expansion underlines the significance of Lanseria in the South African domestic and regional air traffic arena. Lanseria is in close proximity to the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, close to Pretoria and the West Rand, and the ease of use makes it the preferred airport of many,” says airport manager Gavin Sayce. Another benefit to using the airport, Gavin says, is the fact that roads around the airport are being upgraded and fall outside of the Gauteng open-toll road system, which will soon be implemented in the province.
The upgrade comes after low-cost commercial airline, Mango, joined the Lanseria Airport family in June of this year.
Meanwhile, Comair, which until recently held exclusive rights to fly from Lanseria, will begin operating British Airways flights to Gaborone and Maputo from Lanseria, once the airport’s runway has been upgraded to handle the increase in traffic. Stuart Cochrane, executive manager of network development and alliances at Comair, says: “We regret the decision to suspend the launch of our Gaborone and Maputo flights as our team has worked tirelessly to ensure that the new routes reach operational readiness in time.”
Comair is now set to commence operations on the Maputo and Gaborone routes from September 1.
1time has also entered into talks with Lanseria to begin operations at the airport but no official date has been set for the launch of flights. “The date will be announced as soon as we are comfortable with the completion date of the expansion programme currently underway at Lanseria. Unfortunately the airport is currently congested and this would adversely impact our on-time performance if we were to start operating before the completion of the airport facility expansion programme. On-time performance is an extremely important part of our strategy of a ‘More Nice. Less Price’ product,” says 1Ttime ceo Rodney James.
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