Durban - Nearly a year after a feasibility study on the viability of the Virginia Airport was concluded and handed to city bosses, the eThekwini Municipality was on Thursday expected to make the report public.
The report, conducted by consultancy Royal Dutch Haskoning DHV, was to be handed over by city manager, S’bu Sithole, to Durban North councillor, Shaun Ryley.
Ryley, who has been fighting city officials for more than eight months to see the report, said the city had been dragging its heels in releasing it to the public.
In a reply to questions from Ryley at a full council meeting last Thursday, Sithole said he would release the report in seven days.
Ryley said the city had agreed to a 10-year lease with operators at Virginia airport in 2011, but the city pulled out at the last minute and put them on a month-to-month lease.
The city then hired Royal Dutch Haskoning DHV to conduct a feasibility study into the airport, raising suspicion by operators of a sinister motive behind the move.
A condensed version was presented to the city’s executive committee in December.
The report concluded that Virginia Airport was not a viable option for general aviation and that it was operating at a loss.
It said the Durban North airport’s runway occupancy was at 32 percent and that pilot training made up 80 percent of the operations. It said the airport was underutilised.
The report found that an airstrip at Scottburgh was the best option for small craft aviation because of its relative proximity to Durban, existing infrastructure which could be renovated easily, as well as the proximity to the highway and malls.
Daryll Mann, who spoke on behalf of operators at Virginia Airport, said they were unwilling to move to Scottburgh even if a runway was built.
“It is totally impractical… It is the worst choice I could think of.” They would go to court if the municipality decided to go ahead with the move, Mann said.
He said there was no one south of the uMngeni River who went to flight schools. “If it goes anywhere it has to be north,” he said, and listed the creation of a second runway at King Shaka International Airport as a viable option.
A flight school operator said if it moved to Scottburgh it would: “… destroy flight training in Durban”.
The owner, who asked that his name not be used, said people who wanted training would not be willing to travel to Scottburgh as the distance between Durban and the town was “stupidly long”.
He said Durban attracted people from all over the world who wanted to train as pilots. This was a boon for the tourism industry. He said moving the airport would negatively impact tourism.
Critics believe the city was after Virginia Airport because of its prime beachfront location, with sweeping views of the Indian Ocean worth hundreds of millions to potential property developers which would swell the city’s rates base.
Ryley said the city needed to to be held to account.
“This is a matter of denying information that should be made public. Withholding the full report only makes the motive suspicious. We want to see that what the city manager presented to Exco was in the full report,” he said.
Sithole could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Daily News