Aviation » Freight

Air freight at Polokwane International Airport is carried in AIRLINK scheduled domestic flights from OR Tambo International airport in Johannesburg as shown in the insert picture below.

The picture below show passenger laggage (with air cargo, when available) being offloaded from the AIRLINK aircraft from Johannesburg.

As can be seen from the pictures above, the cargo is carried with passenger luggage and it is collected mainly by courier companies at the airport to its destination point. Air freight information presented for Polokwane International airport has been supplied by AIRLINK.

Import and export air freight information at Polokwane international airport for the period May-Dec of 2010 is presented above, which clearly shows imports leading exports by a far margin. For the period under consideration, a total of 35897 kilograms of import cargo arrived at Polokwane airport at an average of 4487 kilograms per month. In the same period a total of 7385 kilograms of export cargo left the airport at an average of 923 kilograms per month.

It can be seen from the pie chart shown above that over 80% of the air cargo at Polokwane airport is import with export accounting for only 17% of all the cargo. This is a very consistent picture for most airports in South Africa with the exception of Cape Town International airport which has more exports than imports. This is a sign of a deficiency within an economic system and the way to solve this problem in Limpopo with high tech companies that can harness the bulk raw minerals (e.g. platinum) being produced in the province by adding value to them through ingenious products that can benefit human kind.

A good example is the use of platinum for automotive catalytic converters, so while the mines produce platinum, the high tech business uses it to make catalytic converters which are sold all over the world. These kinds of developments have to be encouraged in this country if benefit is to be drawn from mining.

The situation at Polokwane international for 2011 is almost the same as 2010 with imports again leading exports by a far margin. A total of 46622 kilograms of import cargo arrived at Polokwane during 2011 till October at an average of 4662 kilograms per month. On the other hand a total of 11862 kilograms left the airport at an average of 1186 kilograms per month. Again 80% of the air cargo is imports and 20% is export as shown below.

 

 

Due to the lack of sufficient historical data on air freight, the forecasting can only be limited to a few months otherwise it will become grossly inaccurate. Due to the size of the data, only a basic trending technique can be applied which operates on a trend curve and seasonal indices.

The supplied data covered the period May 2010 - OCT 2011 and the prediction was made for the Nov and Dec in 2011 as well as Jan - March in 2012. The outcome of the forecast is presented in the chart below.

Air freight at Phalaborwa airport is carried in scheduled AIRLINK flights from Johannesburg and mainly is destined for mining companies in the vicinity. The air freight consists mainly of documents, machine spares and accessories as well as animals (mainly cats and dogs).

A picture of a typical aircraft that is supported at Phalaborwa airport is shown below. Several car hire companies operate from this facility offering much needed transport services.

Air freight at Phalaborwa airport is also carried by AIRLINK from OR Tambo International airport through their daily scheduled flights. Cargo is carried with passenger luggage and it is collected mainly by courier companies at the airport to its destination point. Air freight information presented for Phalaborwa airport has been supplied by AIRLINK. The raw data used to generate the graphs in this section are presented in STATISTIC page.

Import and export air freight information at Phalaborwa airport for the period May-Dec of 2010 is presented on the chart shown above, which clearly shows imports leading exports by a far margin. For the period under consideration, a total of 3824 kilograms of import cargo arrived at Phalaborwa airport at an average of 478 kilograms per month. In the same period a total of 2133 kilograms of export cargo left the airport at an average of 266 kilograms per month.

It can be seen from the pie chart above that over 60% of the air cargo at Phalaborwa airport is import with very little export being recorded. This is a very consistent picture for most airports in South Africa with the exception of Cape Town International airport which has more exports than imports. This is a sign of a deficiency within an economic system and the way to solve this problem in Limpopo with high tech companies that can harness the bulk raw minerals (e.g. platinum) being produced in the province by adding value to them through ingenious products that can benefit human kind.

The situation at Phalaborwa for 2011 is almost the same as 2010 with imports again leading exports by a far margin. A total of 4308 kilograms of import cargo arrived at Phalaborwa during 2011 till October at an average of 431 kilograms per month. On the other hand a total of 1571 kilograms left the airport at an average of 157 kilograms per month. Again over 70% of the air cargo is imports and just over 25% is export as shown in the chart below.

Phalaborwa Air Freight Forecasting

Due to the lack of sufficient historical data on air freight, the forecasting can only be limited to a few months otherwise it will become grossly inaccurate. Due to the size of the data, only a basic trending technique can be applied which operates on a trend curve and seasonal indices.

East Gate airport is a tourist oriented airport facility and as such has got almost zero air freight going through its terminals.

A trailer used to ferry passenger luggage at Hoedspruit airport is shown in the picture above.

Lephalale airport has a huge potential for air freight both as a source and destination. The amount of industrialisation in th area in recent years will require substantial amount of support in terms of equipment, technology and work force. Currently the amount of air freight going through this facility is unknown because the airport is unmanned.