If the problems at SAA are not fixed very soon, South Africa's premier airport, OR Tambo International, will lose its status as a hub connecting Africa to the world, and the world to Africa, says Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) CEO Bongani Maseko.Or what is left of it.A status South Africa has taken for granted is being lost to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and Doha in Qatar.And countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia, which are better placed geographically for this role than South Africa, are catching up fast."The reality is that Emirates is the second-largest carrier of international passengers in and out of South Africa. That has happened in the space of less than five years," says Maseko."So while OR Tambo still remains a hub, we are competing against the main Gulf states."Kenya is rapidly developing as a hub. It is more competitive in that it offers more connectivity to the rest of Africa. Equally so with Ethiopia."If we don't get our game together, we're in danger of losing that status."story_article_left1Acsa has a presence in Brazil and India, where it sees most of the traffic from Latin America to Asia going via Europe.One of its strategic focuses is to influence that traffic to come via Johannesburg.Maseko wants to promote South Africa as a connectivity destination between Asia, South America and Australia."We as Acsa need to begin that conversation with SAA and other relevant airlines like Qantas, Air New Zealand and Cathay Pacific around improving OR Tambo as a hub that connects Australia and New Zealand to Europe."But this won't happen until the situation at the technically bankrupt and chronically mismanaged national carrier is resolved."We need to have a serious conversation around what we want to do with SAA. SAA is an extremely important partner for us; it is extremely important for our country. It continues to bleed. We have not begun to have a conversation as a country around what is it that we want for this national carrier called SAA."Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has indicated that he wants a private sector equity partner for SAA, but last week President Jacob Zuma put the lid on this."That's precisely my point," says Maseko. "Let's have this conversation. We cannot be talking past each other."He cites Singapore Airlines, which, without natural resources, has become a huge airline with a major hub."How did they do that?"They had one plan. And that plan survived successive CEOs, because they had the national conversation. What is stopping us from having that national conversation so that whoever leads SAA, this is the plan that we are going to stick to?"If things continue as they are at SAA, South Africa will lose its hub status sooner than we may imagine, he says."I think that the writing is on the wall. There needs to be stability at the top. SAA is very central to our hub status as a country." The only thing the World Cup did was ensure that we completed the infrastructure upgrade in time for the World Cup Continuing indecision and contradictory statements about SAA's future are a luxury we can no longer afford. "If you look at how big and how successful Emirates have got, I would say we have very little time."Maseko suggests that Emirates has grown largely due to the turmoil in SAA.What has happened in Dubai is a model for what could happen at OR Tambo and Johannesburg, he feels. "What they have done with Dubai airport is destroy the designs of a lot of European hubs by taking people through Turkey."He points out that less than 5% of passengers flying from Dubai airport to other parts of the world originate from Dubai."The amount of transfer traffic is huge."The success of Dubai gives an idea of the vast opportunity costs to South Africa of not sorting out SAA.The economic consequences of losing our hub status will be severe, he says."Dubai has designed itself to be a transfer hub, and in the process of transferring through Dubai they make sure that you shop, you bank, you buy a condominium, you buy an apartment, you do a whole host of things in Dubai."story_article_right2And all of that is built around the success of Emirates."We could be doing exactly the same," he says. "There is nothing that stops us."Except the ongoing fiasco at SAA.Maseko says he wants to turn South Africa's major airports into "commercial/retail/entertainment centres" that will attract non-airline passenger traffic as well."There is nothing to stop us replicating the Sandton Square concept at OR Tambo," he says.And at a transformation conference last week he made it clear that Acsa needs to get more empowerment players involved in the action.A transformation objective has been set by the Acsa board, which, he says, has complained that in the company's retail, information technology, construction and property space "we see largely the same players being recycled through the organisation". Many of the same suppliers have hogged Acsa's retail space since 1993 and have an attitude of "entitlement"."The impression has been created that the airport space is a space that has been spoken for."He says the idea is not simply to use the airports as vehicles for the government's developmental objectives."We are trying to understand the challenges transformed companies face in trying to access our space. What is it we are doing that is keeping them out of Acsa opportunities?" Well-travelled boss aims to stay on an even keel The CEO of Airports Company South Africa (Acsa), Bongani Maseko, is almost as cosmopolitan as the airport, Dubai, he strives to emulate.He grew up in exile after his politically active parents felt it wise to leave apartheid South Africa, was educated at Waterford in Swaziland and matriculated in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.After working as a "runner" for the ANC, he completed a four-year degree in airport and airline management at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, in the US, and worked in the industry there before joining Acsa in 1999.He was MD of OR Tambo International Airport before becoming director of airport operations for Acsa and then its MD in 2013.At an operational level, Acsa under his leadership has been a well-run, profitable monopoly.But he has had to deal with the consequences of a profligate capital expenditure programme preceding the 2010 Soccer World Cup that left Acsa with a R17-billion debt book.A subsequent presidential review committee found that this "pursuit of a national interest[the World Cup] negatively affected the commercial viability of Acsa".Maseko, 49, says infrastructure upgrades and the building of King Shaka International Airport would have been necessary with or without the World Cup. "The only thing the World Cup did was ensure that we completed the infrastructure upgrade in time for the World Cup."He says the infrastructure programme cost more than it should have because construction companies colluded. "We were all at the mercy of the big construction companies."Acsa has reduced its R17-billion debt to R11-billion thanks largely to steep and controversial tariff increases, which Maseko defends. "Our regulatory environment is such that when we go through a high capital expenditure period, naturally tariffs go up."He is battling to reach a five-year tariff agreement with the regulators, which have gazetted a draft tariff reduction of about 40% in the first year, with slight increases over the next four years."We have a debt book of around R11-billion. If their draft tariff becomes the final tariff, it will result in us defaulting on our loans," Maseko says.Or needing a government bail-out...