D-Day for SA Airlink
The festive-season flights of close to 50,000 ticket holders are in the balance with Transport Minister Sbu Ndebele to announce today whether he will ground SA Airlink.
Transport department spokesman Thami Ngidi said Ndebele would hold a meeting in Pretoria today to debrief the South African Civil Aviation Authority on his findings after he was handed a report from the embattled airline on Friday.
Ndebele requested the report from Airlink after a series of incidents involving their aircraft, including one crash after which the pilot died as a result of his injuries.
“The CAA has met Airlink to discuss a way forward and they will discuss this with the minister as well,” Ngidi said.
“This is an urgent matter, the minister has to keep the public informed all the way. A decision will be made by the end of the day.”
Karin Murray, SA Airlink marketing manager, told The Times that by Friday the airline had bookings for “just over 48,000 tickets for travel over the December-January school holidays”.
“Airlink is waiting for further information from the CAA and the transport minister. We will immediately implement whatever remedial actions are required,” Murray said.
“Until September 24, Airlink had operated for 17 years with an unblemished safety record and we share the minister’s and public concern for aviation safety.”
Murray said Airlink was co-operating with the CAA’s oversight audit of the airline and had asked former South African Airways chief training captain Scully Levin to conduct an independent safety review.
“If there are any gaps, we want to know what they are and where so we can move immediately to close them,” she said.
Recent accidents in Durban, in which an Airlink plane was forced to crash land at a school, in George, where a plane aquaplaned off the runway, and in Port Elizabeth, where a plane veered off the runway during take-off, had involved “different aircraft, crews, circumstances and locations and [are] still under investigation”, she said.
Airlink operates more than 3500 flights each month across South and Southern Africa and is the only airline providing services on some routes including to Kimberley, Upington, Phalaborwa, Polokwane, Nelspruit and Maseru.
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