MANAGEMENT and staff of Port Elizabeth International Airport expect that flying for leisure purposes to and from the airport will begin to pick up significantly from this week.
Senior manager of corporate affairs at Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), Senzeni Ndebele, said that experience from when domestic flying was opened for business travel suggests that it will take a few days for flights to be in place and bookings to be made.
“We saw previously that airlines and passengers need a bit of time to make arrangements. After that, demand starts slowly and builds up over a few weeks.
“It will be quite some time before we get back to pre-COVID-19 levels, but it’s very encouraging to be able to make a start to the tourism recovery,” she said.
Ndebele appealed to leisure passengers to ensure that they familiarise themselves with the health and safety rules now in place at all local airports.
“Passengers who have not been inside an airport for months will find a range of measures in place that must be followed. These measures are not simply airport rules but official government regulations.
“However, we hope that by now the public has grown accustomed to mask-wearing, sanitisation, hand-washing and physical distancing,” she added.
She mentioned that in the terminal building, these measures increase the time needed for passengers to make their way through the airport system, so it is essential to arrive at least two hours before the scheduled departure.
Once inside the airport, passengers will able to buy refreshments and, in due course, some food outlets may also reopen.
“The most important thing we would like passengers to know is that they can have confidence that the air travel environment is safe, from entering the terminal to picking up bags at the destination,” Ndebele concluded.
