Johannesburg - Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) has confirmed that operations are back to normal at OR Tambo International Airport (ORTIA) amid flight delays experienced on Wednesday.
ACSA said this was due to a technical fault experienced from the fuel storage facility to the main hydrant system that led to an impact on refuelling aircraft.
ACSA issued a statement confirming that there was a challenge with refuelling of aircraft on Wednesday.
“The technical issue was due to the main supply valve supplying fuel to the aprons not opening, thus causing rotational delays to domestic and international departures. As a contingency, a tanker was used to refuel aircraft,” said the ORTIA airport management.
The management said from the commencement of operations until 8.30am, when the problem was resolved, a total of 41 flights were impacted, 32 being domestic, eight international and one regional flight.
“Operations are back to normal except for knock-on effects of late departures leading to delayed returned flights. ORTIA would like to apologise to all passengers and their loved ones for the inconvenience caused,” it said.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula was briefed by ACSA about the problem, and he urged the management to be more proactive in their communications when such incidents occur which inconvenience travellers.
Transport ministry spokesperson, Lwazi Khoza said: “This matter has since been resolved by technicians who are on-site monitoring the situation, with flights expected to return to normal scheduling. Mbalula extends sincere apologies to travellers who were inconvenienced by this situation on their commute.”
This left a number of passengers angry, some took to social media platform Twitter to express concerns.
Winston Mashele wrote: “Problems of this country will never come to an end. They sold SAA and I thought they have resolved the challenges but it seems nothing is being done to address our concerns as a country”.
The Star