The State-owned Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) officially launched the OR Tambo International Airport management centre (AMC) on Monday and revealed that it was planning to roll out the concept at its airports in Durban and Cape Town.

The facility had been operational since May this year and had already resulted in an improvement of departure times and airport efficiency.

Speaking at a launch function, OR Tambo International Airport's director of operations Bongani Maseko said that the AMC had been developed over the past three years and ensures coordination between all stakeholders, including Acsa, Air Traffic and Navigation Services, as well as the airlines.

Zurich International Airport head of operation Andrea Baroni said at the launch that the OR Tambo International AMC was an advance on the original Zurich International Airport AMC, which was where the concept was originally developed.

"The idea of an AMC is to improve daily airport operations by stimulating collaboration between airport partners, namely the service providers and airlines," Baroni said.

He added that the effective approach of an AMC covers communication and cooperation between partners, operational transparency through shared information, and governance through sustainable improvement of business performance.

Zurich International Airport had managed to achieve significant improvements in on-time departures, had won a number of customer experience awards and had dramatically lowered the number of customer complaints concerning baggage delivery since its AMC was implemented in 2004.

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