Wonderboom Airport, north of Pretoria, could be Gauteng’s up-and-coming secondary airport for domestic flights.
The airport has announced that, after a three-month oversight audit by the South African CAA, it has been upgraded from category 2 to category 5.
This means that the airport now falls within with prerequisite safety standards for the handling of scheduled commercial flights.
There have been several attempts to use the airport for domestic flights in the past. But Wonderboom airport was downgraded nearly four years ago due to infrastructure issues and it became unable to handle scheduled flights up until the recent upgrade.
Katlego Mathebe, MMC for Roads and Transport, told Pretoria publication, Rekord at a recent airshow at the airport: “The current development now allows the city to confidently open its doors and welcome interested airline operators that wish to introduce scheduled flight services at the airport.”
Mathebe said the Category 5 status was a sign that Tshwane was competent to manage the airport, despite the Tshwane Mayor having planned to ditch the asset due to the high debt the municipality faced.
She added that the metro would commit itself to ensuring capacity to enable the airfield to deliver its mandate for economic development.
It is believed that there is a market for passenger services from the Pretoria area, for residents that do not wish to commute to ORTIA. An estimated 25%-30% of passengers using ORTIA are Pretoria residents.
