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Finding your way at major airports is no joke
The Airports Company South Africa last week claimed that it is 90% ready to deal with the demands of the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup to take place in June. On the very same day that the general manager of OR Tambo International Airport made this claim, a visitor to his airport could not gather from the overhead signage in the main lobby which of the signs – one pointing north and the other south – was for domestic and which for international departures.
Our visitor, who has not been to OR Tambo for some eight months, returned his rented car and from there walked straight into the impressive new main lobby of the airport. In front of him, he found signage directing him to departure terminals to the south. But he could move also to the left for more departure terminals. Absent, however, were indications of which signs are for domestic flights and which for international flights.
A quick question to an officially dressed passing worker in the lobby, he was informed that the domestic departures are still toward the south and up the escalators.
If he had not enquired and so had ended up on the northern side of the building, he would have discovered that the two departure halls are situated on the two extreme ends of the building complex, and it would have been a walk of a kilometre or more to reach the correct location.
Once in Cape Town, our visitor – who pretended to be a stranger (feeling like one after some months of not visiting the airport) and working on a restricted budget – went looking for public transport to take him to the centre of the city. Outside, he found a sign directing him to a “bus hub”. When, after walking for some minutes in that direction, he could not see any buses or anything that resembled a terminal, he again asked a security guard about where he could find a bus going to town.
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He was informed that the “bus hub” was actually only a parking area for tour buses. Since he wanted to make use of public transport, he was directed to a bus stop on the road bridge just on the other side of the filling station some five minutes' walk from the airport. There he could board a Golden Arrow bus to the Nyanga minibus taxi terminus, where he would find transport to the city centre.
Heading back to the airport building, he noticed in the distance a “visitor centre” – only to discover that it was not yet operational.
At the counter of a shuttle service around the corner, he was informed that there are only one of two ways to get to the centre of town: the minibus of the shuttle service at a cost of R140 is the cheapest option; or a metered taxi at a minimum cost or R360 – besides perhaps hitching a ride.
It can only be hoped that once all the projects – at what OR Tambo general manager Chris Hlekane described as the “golden triangle” of his airport, Cape Town International and King Shaka in Durban – are complete at the end of March, it would include clear, unambiguous direction signs and some form of public transport.
