Growing air cargo volumes
is a high priority for
Air Botswana which
has reintroduced a
dedicated freighter service between
Johannesburg and Gaborone.
According to Molefi Kgautlhe,
assistant cargo manager for the
airline, they are already seeing an
increase in volumes just months after
launching the new service.
“Air cargo in Botswana is onedirectional,
mostly transiting from
Johannesburg from our interlining
partners. We don’t have that much
volume flying out of the country and
so it is not just about growing the
volumes inbound but also looking
at ways of increasing the outbound
volume,” he said.
With the close proximity of
Gaborone to Johannesburg – only
about 400km – Kgautlhe said air
freight faced stiff competition from
road.
“Air freight by its very nature is
expensive and so we have to work
exceptionally hard to attract and
retain volumes for air.”
He said volumes had been
increasing steadily over the past
few months leading the airline to
launch a dedicated cargo flight in
August. “We are using a DC 4 with
eight tonne capacity flying between
Johannesburg and Gaborone twice
weekly,” he said. “At the same time
we also have around three tons
of cargo capacity on our daily
commercial flights on the same
sector.”
Kgautlhe said there was also
an increase in the cargo volumes
between Gaborone and other
destinations such as Lusaka in
Zambia and Harare in Zimbabwe.
“We are flying a lot of
pharmaceuticals to Lusaka as well as
vaccinations for livestock to various
destinations worldwide – and that’s
proving to be a very viable business.
Estimates are that we have seen
regional growth of around 3% this
year alone,” he told FTW.
INSERT & CAPTION
It’s not just about growing
the volumes inbound but
also looking at ways of
increasing the outbound
volume.
– Molefi Kgautlhe
