ABSTRACT
On 1 May 2010 the first flights departed the newly constructed King Shaka International Airport (KSIA). This one billion dollar project finally saw the light of day after decades of institutional wrangling. It was funded largely by the Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA), together with the associated project, which was funded largely by ACSA and the Dube TradePort project, which was funded by the KwaZulu Natal Provincial Government. Proponents in the Provincial Government’s Dube TradePort initiative had argued that not only would the new airport, with its expanded passenger facilities and longer runway, allow for growing passenger numbers, but also the dedicated airfreight facilities and services provided in the project would support the export of higher value products and enhance economic integration between the region and other markets. This development was significant in the process of ongoing positioning and repositioning for the City of Durban and its hinterland, heralding the emergence of highly contested visions of how a city accommodates and prioritizes the movement of freight and its related infrastructure and systems alongside more traditional concerns around basic services and built environment management and regulation.
