The dawn of democracy in South Africa 25 years ago coincided with the establishment of Airports Company of South Africa which consolidated the management of individual airports that were formerly under the Department of Transport. 

Since then transformation of our airports has kept pace with and, in some notable instances, been ahead of the significant changes happening in the country at large.

Many of our achievements have been linked to the major events in South Africa. For example, we built King Shaka International Airport in time for the 2010 Soccer World Cup; upgraded and expanded infrastructure across all our airports; saw consistent growth in our passenger numbers across the network; increased our spend on black businesses to almost half of our total expenditure and successfully introduced a new operating model.

Transformation from an employment equity point of view is more than just meeting our targets. This is reflected in our 93% achievement progress against our employment equity plan.

The company has reported profits in all but one of the past 25 years and does not depend on government funding.

We are proud of these achievements but, just as with the nation, it has not always been a smooth ride. The company is part of the national fabric and not immune to the challenges all around us.

In the next 25 years, our main focus will be to realise our Vision 2025 objectives through digitisation of our operations, improving customer experience and transforming the critical points of a passenger’s journey.