Podcasts · AviaDev Insight Africa
365. Exploring South Africa's aviation landscape and counting down to BARSA 2026 with George Mothema, CEO
· 31 min · S1 E365
Episode 365. Exploring South Africa's aviation landscape and counting down to BARSA 2026 with George Mothema, CEO
In this episode, we speak with George Mothema, CEO of the Board of Airline Representatives of South Africa (BARSA), to review the state of South African aviation in 2026 and preview the upcoming BARSA conference in KwaZulu-Natal.
George highlights positive market developments including shareholding changes at Safair, Qatar's 25% stake in Airlink, and SAA adding new routes as it rebuilds.
Key challenges discussed include ATNS's past neglect of instrument and flight procedure redesigns that led to suspended procedures and losses for airlines serving secondary airports, aging CNS equipment requiring manual workarounds, delayed airport maintenance by ACSA with noted improvements at OR Tambo, and border management bottlenecks such as long passport-control queues and delays implementing e-gates due to slow biometric systems and aging platforms.
Find out more: https://barsa.co.za/
00:00 Welcome to AviaDev Insight Africa + Introducing BARSA CEO George Mothema
01:17 South Africa Aviation 2026: The Good News (market shakeups, new investors, SAA routes)
04:21 The Bad News: ATNS flight procedure suspensions & air traffic systems upgrades
06:23 Airport maintenance & border control bottlenecks
08:27 Policy & safety snapshot: civil aviation policy balance
11:39 Regional recovery & why BARSA is heading to KwaZulu-Natal (Durban)
15:43 Conference theme reveal: "Destination Africa" and what it means
16:07 Program deep dive
22:34 Who should attend BARSA 2026
30:48 Wrap-up.
Links in the notes 1
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