Cape Town International Airport

Cape Town International Airport
IATA: CPT ICAO: FACT WMO: 68816
Summary
Airport type	Public
Operator	Airports Company South Africa
Serves	Cape Town
Location	Matroosfontein, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Hub for	Mango South African Express
Elevation AMSL	46 m / 151 ft
Coordinates	33°58′10″S 018°35′50″E / 33.96944°S 18.59722°E / -33.96944; 18.59722Coordinates: 33°58′10″S 018°35′50″E / 33.96944°S 18.59722°E / -33.96944; 18.59722
Website	acsa.co.za
Map
CPT Location within the Cape Town metropolitan area
Runways
Direction Length Surface m ft 01/19 3,201 10,502 Asphalt 16/34 1,701 5,581 Asphalt
Statistics (Apr 2015 - Mar 2016)
Passengers 9,659,589 Aircraft movements 100,221
Source: Traveller24, Cape Town International awarded for network development, published on 21 July 2016

Cape Town International Airport (IATA: CPT, ICAO: FACT) is the primary airport serving the city of Cape Town, and is the second busiest airport in South Africa and third busiest in Africa. Located approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) from the city centre, the airport was opened in 1954 to replace Cape Town's previous airport, Wingfield Aerodrome. Cape Town International Airport is the only airport in the Cape Town metropolitan area that offers scheduled passenger services. The airport has domestic and international terminals, linked by a common central terminal.

The airport has direct flights from South Africa's other two main urban areas, Johannesburg and Durban, as well as flights to smaller centres in South Africa. Internationally, it has direct flights to several destinations in Africa, Asia and Europe. The air route between Cape Town and Johannesburg was the world's ninth busiest air route in 2011 with an estimated 4.5 million passengers.

Cape Town International Airport was opened in 1954, a year after Jan Smuts Airport (now OR Tambo International Airport) on the Witwatersrand opened. The airport replaced Cape Town's previous airport, Wingfield Aerodrome. Originally called D.F. Malan Airport after the then South African prime minister, it initially offered two international flights: a direct flight to Britain and a second flight to Britain via Johannesburg.

With the fall of apartheid in the early 1990s, ownership of the airport was transferred from the state to the newly formed Airports Company South Africa, and the airport was renamed to the politically neutral Cape Town International Airport. The first years of the twenty-first century saw tremendous growth at the airport; from handling 6.2 million passengers per annum in 2004–05, the airport peaked at 8.4 million passengers per annum in 2007–08 before falling back to 7.8 million in 2008–09.