The Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) has again expressed frustration and concern about repeated failures in South Africa’s aviation infrastructure. It has pointed out that Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS – responsible for air traffic management and control), and the South African Weather Service (SAWS – responsible for flight-critical weather forecasts for aviation) had all recently failed to provide the full range of services that they were meant to supply to airlines.

“Airlines and passengers pay statutory user charges to various State aviation agencies for provision of reliable, safe and efficient and affordable services,” pointed out AASA CEO Aaron Munetsi. “However, AASA is concerned that ACSA, ATNS and SAWS applied to their respective economic regulators for new tariff increases when they have been unable to provide the full range of the services that they been paid for. At the same the airlines are bearing the brunt in terms of ensuring that they meet their commitments to their customers by having to provide alternatives for disrupted operations.”

Regarding ACSA, there have been issues regarding refuelling infrastructure reliability, the supply of electrical power and redundancy systems, at OR Tambo International Airport (east of Johannesburg) and Cape Town International Airport. Uncertainty remained about the management of jet fuel reserves and, indeed, the security of the jet fuel supply. These uncertainties were hampering the ability of airlines to maintain the integrity of their schedules. Also, a number of airports were suffering from obsolete and/or unserviceable equipment. These included “too many” unserviceable runway and taxiway lights and travellators that had not functioned in years.

Airlines were also still being adversely affected by ATNS’s “very slow” progress in restoring the 326 instrument flight procedures it withdrew last July. ATNS was also suffering from a shortage of qualified and experienced air traffic controllers (with South African ATC personnel being aggressively poached by agencies in other countries).

Further, last weekend, SAWS suffered a double cyber breach which disrupted its ability to undertake aviation weather observations and issue aviation weather reports. Fortunately, AASA airlines found workarounds, so their flights were not disrupted. “In this day and age it is imperative that our essential service providers have robust cybersecurity barriers in place, which are tested frequently for gaps, which are then plugged,” he highlighted.

Hazards, problems and issues with flight routes or aviation facilities were communicated to airlines and aviators via official communiques called “Notices to Airmen”, better known as NOTAMs. As of Thursday, there were 12 NOTAMs warning of unserviceable runway, taxiway, approach, stop-bar and obstacle lights at six South African airports (including OR Tambo International and Cape Town International). There were 24 NOTAMs regarding suspended instrument flight procedures; two regarding suspended instrument landing systems; 13 regarding suspended radio-navigation approaches; one that listed 27 suspended airways (cruising altitudes for airliners flying between the major cities); one regarding apron taxiway damage at Cape Town; one regarding damage to the surface of Cape Town’s Runway 19, just after its threshold; one referring to temporary downgrades of some of the Cape Town taxiways; seven regarding the lack of availability of aviation weather services at seven airports (one NOTAM for each airport), including OR Tambo, Cape Town, Durban’s King Shaka International, Lanseria International, and Kruger Mpumalanga International; one advising that the crash alarm at King Shaka was out or order; one on the fuel shortages at OR Tambo; and one warning that trees had been allowed to encroach on to the approaches to all of Kimberley Airport’s runways.

“AASA’s position is that its members and travellers have been paying top dollar for services that have not been fully reliable and in some cases such as ATNS’s failure to maintain the approval of instrument flight procedures, it collected our money but did not do the work,” asserted Munetsi. “The regulators should insist on full audits of how those user charges were spent before entertaining any applications for increases.”