The CESA ACSA Aviation Webinar was hosted on Thursday, 18 March with a line-up of interesting speakers including Kesavan Naicker, Group Manager in the Enterprise Project Management office at Airports Company South Africa (ACSA); Malcolm Koopman, ACSA Senior Specialist for Technical Solutions; and CESA CEO Chris Campbell.

Providing the opening remarks, CESA Young Professionals Forum chairperson, Yankho Banda, welcomed attendees and introduced the speakers. The first speaker, Campbell, discussed CESA’s theme for 2021 ‘Rebuilding with Purpose’. He reiterated CESA’s commitment to improving the relationship between the consulting engineering industry and client bodies. In terms of the COVID-19 pandemic, Campbell pointed out that CESA is in support of the notion that the vaccine rollout is important and takes precedence over everything else. He called for the urgent implementation for the roll-out of vaccines.  “The sooner we deal with COVID-19, the sooner we can work on rebuilding the economy.” CESA, he said, is focused on sustainable solutions and supports the development of a capacitated state.

Koopman presented on general and advisory services including ACSA’s plans and how his division is working towards achieving its objectives. “We all know that the air travel industry was dealt a major blow, which directly affected ACSA’s operations,” stated Koopman.

Naicker’s presentation provided an overview of the Capex program but not at a project level. He mentioned that they had to monitor and adjust to global responses and that passenger recovery compared to pre-COVID-19 is not expected before 2027. He also mentioned that two years ago they embarked on a research exercise to find out the challenges companies encountered as ACSA wanted to support EMEs and QSEs from designated groups. In his closing remarks, he said one concern for ACSA is the exodus of skills from the South African pool. “You will find out that when they go out there, it is very difficult to get them back”.

Videos are available on CEtv https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2GFE0sfAAiIeFaVYtYfnMA/videos