Cape Town International Airport Is Greeting Tourists ‘Gangster-Style’

Just over a month since winning the award for being Africa’s leading airport, Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) is greeting its tourists with the remnants of a month-old gang-related shooting scene. (17/11/17 – Please see update below.)

The award was presented at the 2017 World Travel Africa Awards gala ceremony in Rwanda on 10 October 2017, the first time Cape Town has won since 2006.

Eight days later – on 18 October 2017 – alleged Sexy Boys gang boss, Jerome ‘Donkie’ Booysen, was shot and wounded at Cape Town’s international airport. Over 20 shots were reportedly fired of which four hit Booysen in his upper body, and one stray bullet hit another man.

Now, almost a month later, the bullet-riddled glass pane is still in full view of local and international visitors at arrivals and drop off. The airport – Africa’s third largest – processes about 10 million passengers annually!

Cape Town businessman and frequent flyer, Stan Sanetra, said: “We need to fix these windows… Not good for us advertising Gangsterism as a Tourist attraction!”

In a statement in October, Deon Cloete, CTIA general manager, said Cape Town was expecting a “bumper peak season” (which started in October when seasonal carriers launched their summer schedules), and that “the team is geared to do their bit to welcome all of our visitors”.

Fantastic Christmas decorations have been installed at the airport… but the bullet-riddled glass pane is  probably not the welcome visitors are looking for!

SAPeople has asked CTIA when they plan to replace the glass, and will update as soon as we hear back.

UPDATE 17 November 2017: Good news! CTIA has informed SAPeople that they are looking at replacing it next Friday 24 November 2017. CTIA’s FB admin said: “The glass is the hardened type speciality glass. It had to be ordered and will be cut at the factory as it’s not the type you cut on site. This explains the time factor to correct it.”