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All international flights into the Greater Tokyo area were routed through Narita. But all that changed when Hatoyama-San’s government came into power in 2009 when Seiji Maehara, the then transport minister, announced that Haneda would start handling international flights.
Since the announcement was made that Haneda would stop being a domestic flights-only airport, true to Japanese management style, the airport was swiftly converted to an international airport. I say true to Japanese management style, because Japanese corporations are notorious for extensive, excessive and sometimes laborious consultation designed to reach a consensus, which is then followed by rapid and often irreversible implementation.
This is an important distinction between the Western and Japanese style of management. So, in October 2010, a new international terminal was opened at Haneda Airport. I had a chance to visit Hong Kong this week. That small island to the south of China has a very huge airport, Hong Kong International Airport, built on an island which was created through sea reclamation. According to the Airports Council International, it services over 90 airlines.
More interesting is the fact that it employs slightly over 55 000 people and handles over three million tonnes of cargo every year. Now that is huge!
A few hours to the south-east of Hong Kong, in Singapore, is Changi International Airport, which by any standard is a very huge airport employing over 25 000 people and, handling over 42 million passengers and over 1,8 million tonnes of cargo last year alone. This airport complements Singapore’s strategic role as a major centre for entrepôt trade, both globally and in the Asia Pacific region.
Before zeroing in on the crux of the matter, it is important to talk about Incheon International Airport in South Korea. The airport, located 70 kilometres west of the capital Seoul, is one of the best airports in the world, rated so consecutively by the Airports International Council. Together with Changi International Airport in Singapore, and Hong Kong International Airport, Incheon has been rated a full five-star airport by Skytrax.
It played a key part in ensuring the success of the 2002 soccer World Cup co-hosted with Japan. More importantly, the airport has a present capacity of handling over 4 million tonnes of cargo per year, and going forward, there are plans to extend this airport’s capacity so that it can handle over 100 million passengers and over 7 million passengers a year by 2020.
So the question is, why is all this important? First, it is simply indicative of the extensive growth going on in the Asia Pacific region characterised by extensive air travel and building of airport infrastructure capable of handling millions of customers per year.
Secondly, and more importantly, all these nations with the airports identified above — Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea — are engaging in rivalry of an economic nature which is quite subtle. To figure out the kind of battle going on, one needs to look no further than Seiji Maehara’s statement in 2009.
“There is no hub airport in Japan currently,” Maehara said.
“With Narita serving international (flights) and Haneda domestic, South Korea’s Incheon airport has become the hub airport for Japan.” Therein lies the answer — creating an aviation hub.
These four major airports in the Asia Pacific, and the rise of some other airports in China over the past few years, has given rise to major competition for use of these airports as hubs.
Of course, the question that can emanate from the foregoing point is, what is a hub, and why a hub? Here is the answer. In logistics management in general, and aviation specifically, there is tremendous use of the hub and spoke concept, when airlines plan their routes. In simple language, to minimise costs and maximise returns, airlines route their flights through a hub if they are not able to fly directly to the destination with enough load.
That way, they can pick up more passengers, or combine a route in an alliance with another airline. A good example would be the Star Alliance, in which the South African Airways is part of.
In short, many airlines fly through the hub and re-route to various other destinations. Thus when you map it out, it looks like the hub and spokes of a wheel, hence the hub and spoke concept.
By converting Haneda Airport to an airport that handles international traffic, and not just domestic flights, the strategy is to make that airport compete generally with all the other four airports, and more specifically with Incheon airport, just across the Sea of Japan, as a hub. That way, there is more air traffic into Tokyo, and more rerouting of air traffic bound for the Asia Pacific through Japan.
Why is this issue important for Africa in general and Zimbabwe specifically? There is rapid growth and production worth trillions of dollars in the Asia Pacific region at present. However, there is an expectation that the next decade will be Africa’s decade, and it does not seem like Africans are prepared for it. There is no evidence anywhere of any strategic planning and mapping to not only accelerate this, but also be ready when it happens.
At present, OR Tambo International Airport plays the hub for Southern and Central Africa. I am not persuaded that this is by design. Rather, it’s a consequence of South Africa’s economic dominance, much the same way as multinationals would prefer to have their regional headquarters there.
However, it appears to me that geographically, Zimbabwe is even more suited to be a hub for Southern and Central Africa. Imagine all major flights into this region routing through Zimbabwe first, and then connecting to Johannesburg, Nairobi, Addis Ababa, or Uganda!
My friends from Cameroon tell me that if they want to fly to South Africa, or Zimbabwe, it’s cheaper and more convenient for them to fly to Paris first and then catch a connecting flight to Johannesburg or Harare.
Now, for all our African leaders’ talk about Pan-Africanism and continental integration, this situation is not just an embarrassment, it’s an indictment on us as Africans. A few months ago, I spoke to an official of the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe. He was in Singapore, ostensibly to talk to some airlines so that they can fly to Zimbabwe. I just said to myself, these folks are not serious. There is need for more strategic thinking than that. The planners in the Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Communications have to exercise more dynamic thinking than they are doing right now.
They should come up with more incentive packages for airlines and comprehensively review all the factors necessary and relevant for converting the Harare International Airport into a regional hub in preparation for Africa’s decade.
The authorities could also scrap visa requirements for visitors coming into the country for less than 30 days as is done in Singapore and Hong Kong.
The economic benefits will be tremendous. It will create jobs. It could easily create 10 000-airport jobs over the next decade. There will be direct benefits to the tourism industry. Passengers in transit can stop over briefly and do shopping and sightseeing. It will create business opportunities in catering, supplying of fuel to the airlines, handling of cargo, sellers of artefacts and transactions for banks.
It will create opportunities for running airport shuttles, to name just a few. But most importantly, it will create inflows into the economy, which will improve Zimbabwe’s liquidity and foreign exchange position.
With the conversion of Haneda to an international hub, Japan is hoping to attract 10 million tourists in 2011 alone. Imagine if by thinking this way, we were to attract just a mere 3 million tourists, Minister of Tourism and Hospitality Industry Mr Walter Mzembi and Zimbabwe Tourism Authority boss Mr Karikoga Kaseke’s jobs would be made easier or superfluous even. Very sadly, however, the planners at the Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Communications are concerning themselves with petty things like banning the importation of vehicles that are five years old. If only they realised that they have much bigger fish to fry!
l Taurai Chinyamakobvu is a scholar, consultant and analyst based in Japan. Feedback can be mailed to tchinyamakobvuatgmail.com-The Sunday Mail
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