Not-yet-approved capital expenditure of R300-million would be spent on sprucing up the OR Tambo International Airport (ORTIA), said ORTIA GM Tebogo Mekgoe on Wednesday.

He said the money would largely go towards refurbishments and maintenance work, as well as procuring additional X-ray processing capacity.

Mekgoe also noted that he expected 2013 passenger numbers to remain flat at what the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) described as “Africa’s biggest and busiest airport”.

Passenger numbers last year reached around 18-million, with the peak set in 2007 at just over 19-million. ORTIA handled around 6-million passengers in 1993.

Mekgoe attributed the lack of growth to tough economic circumstances. He added that airlines’ schedules indicated that they too expected zero growth for 2013.

He did not ascribe the stagnant growth to the surge of passengers moving through Lanseria Airport, to the west of Johannesburg, although he also acknowledged that the airport, which was being redeveloped and expanded, was luring traffic away from ORTIA in the short term.

“We get the same questions about Nairobi. Lanseria is not a particular worry to us.”

Mekgoe noted that increasing air traffic in South Africa served as an indication of economic growth, which benefited everyone in the aviation industry.

Something new passengers at ORTIA could look forward to in 2013 would be the launch of an app that would provide a range of information on the airport, from flights schedules to retail opportunities and car rental options.

Mekgoe said Acsa was looking at developing this app across all of its airports.

On-time departures at ORTIA was also expected to increase in 2013, improving from 75% in 2009 to 88% at the beginning of this year.

Mekgoe said the remaining 12% were largely related to planes leaving their destinations late, causing rotational delays; inclement weather and technical faults.

In the longer term, Acsa was still mulling the development of a new mid-field terminal between ORTIA’s two existing runways, as well as expanding its property offering by adding several new buildings around its terminals. A new road would then also need to split from the R24 to enter this new property precinct.

The land targetted for this development, still in a concept phase, belonged to South African Airways, the South African National Roads Agency Limited and Acsa.

By adding the mid-field terminal to ORTIA, the airport could grow its capacity by 40-million passengers a year.