There is something extraordinary about an airport.
Every few minutes, an aircraft weighing hundreds of tonnes leaves the ground because thousands of things, and thousands of people, have worked exactly as they should.
Engineers, air traffic controllers, security personnel, baggage handlers, technology teams, airlines, cleaners, executives and regulators all contribute to one successful departure.
Aviation offers us an important lesson about leadership: nothing important flies because of one person.
That lesson is particularly relevant as Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) enters its next chapter.
ACSA is far more than the custodian of terminals and runways. Its nine airports connect South Africa internally and to the world, enabling tourism, investment and trade. Its latest integrated reporting estimates its company-level contribution at approximately R11.2 billion to GDP and almost 24,000 jobs. When an airport works, an economy moves. When it fails, the consequences extend far beyond the terminal. That is why leadership at ACSA matters.
Covid-19 brought global aviation almost to a standstill and forced ACSA into a necessary era of Recover and Sustain. Liquidity had to be protected, passenger confidence rebuilt and the balance sheet repaired. But institutions cannot remain in recovery forever. Survival must eventually give way to ambition.
ACSA’s new strategic direction — Innovate, Grow and Sustain — therefore arrives at the right time. You cannot innovate if every new idea dies in bureaucracy. You cannot grow if infrastructure cannot support greater demand. And you cannot sustain an institution if every leadership change requires it to start again. Succession is not merely an HR exercise. It is a governance responsibility.
ACSA’s refreshed Board, chaired by Irvin Phenyane, brings together experience across aviation, technology, infrastructure, law, governance and risk. Phenyane brings more than two decades of aviation experience, together with exposure to emerging technologies and unmanned aviation. This matters because the future of aviation will not be defined simply by larger terminals and longer runways.
Artificial intelligence, biometrics, autonomous systems, drones and sustainable aviation technologies will increasingly shape how airports operate. A modern board therefore needs capabilities suited not only to the institution it governs today, but to the institution it must become tomorrow. Good governance is not about assembling impressive names around a boardroom table. It is about assembling the right capabilities for the future you are trying to build. The executive transition provides another important test.
Charles Shilowa became Acting CEO on 1 July 2026 after years within ACSA, including responsibility for capital infrastructure asset management. At a time when the company is embarking on an infrastructure investment programme of approximately R21.7 billion, institutional familiarity matters. You cannot place infrastructure investment of that magnitude into unnecessary organisational turbulence. Continuity, however, must not become stagnation. Equally, renewal must not result in Institutional amnesia.
New leaders should inherit institutional memory, not institutional baggage. There are encouraging signs of what disciplined renewal can achieve. For the year ended March 2025, ACSA reported revenue of approximately R7.9 billion and profit of R1.1 billion, more than double the previous year’s result. Its net debt-to-capitalisation ratio declined from 17% to approximately 8%, creating greater capacity for future investment.
The role of younger executives is also worth recognising. CFO Luzuko Mbotya represents a generation increasingly being entrusted with substantial institutional responsibility. We often speak about “giving young people opportunities”. We should demand something more meaningful. Do not merely give young leaders a seat at the table. Give them responsibility for something that matters. Mentor them. Challenge them. Hold them accountable.
Allow them to make decisions and let excellence, rather than age, determine how far they rise. Renewal does not require the rejection of experience. The greatest contribution experienced leaders can make is to produce another generation capable of taking an institution further.
ACSA will need that leadership depth. Its airports process millions of passengers and thousands of aircraft movements. At that scale, a failed escalator is not merely a maintenance issue. A baggage-system failure becomes an operational problem. Technology failure becomes a passenger-experience problem. Poor procurement becomes a governance problem. Delayed infrastructure eventually becomes an economic problem.
South Africa cannot afford a false choice between governance and delivery. Innovation cannot mean abandoning controls. Speed cannot excuse poor governance. Transformation cannot become a euphemism for lowering standards. But governance must equally not become so cumbersome that nothing gets built. Modern leadership must make integrity and execution partners, not enemies.
The Board’s appointment of a permanent CEO will therefore be one of its most important decisions. The question should go beyond who can occupy the office. It should be who can protect what works while changing what must change; oversee billions in infrastructure without compromising governance; understand aviation today while imagining it twenty years from now; and build a leadership team rather than a personality cult.
Most importantly, it should be someone confident enough to prepare another person eventually to succeed them. South Africa has too often believed that every new leader requires a new plan, a new team and a new beginning.
Great institutions cannot survive perpetual reinvention. A new captain does not turn an aircraft around halfway down the runway simply because they have taken control. They inherit the destination, understand the conditions, make the necessary corrections — and continue the journey. That is continuity.
ACSA has survived the storm. The harder assignment now is turning recovery into generational progress. The airports being modernised today will serve people not yet born. Technologies being procured today will eventually be managed by people currently occupying junior positions. So the question facing ACSA — and indeed every major South African institution — should not only be: Who is leading today? It should be: Who are we preparing to lead tomorrow?
Runways are built for departure. Great institutions are built for continuity. South Africa need institutions that can innovate without abandoning experience, grow without weakening governance, and renew leadership without losing institutional memory.
* Nicholas Maweni is the CEO of Munsoft.
**The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Media Group.