The SA aviation industry, which was in the spotlight after the grounding of Comair flights recently, has endured major setbacks over the past three years. The industry has seen an exit of senior staff and the retrenchment of workers during the Covid-19 pandemic which led to a shortage of skills.
Aviation expert Guy Leitch said that SA’s aviation industry has “suffered enormously over the past three years”.
The airline industry, which contributes about R180bn to SA’s economy, was among sectors that were heavily affected by Covid-19 as national and international borders were closed and interprovincial travel prohibited during the hard lockdown.
“A lot of good talent on the maintenance side has left the industry and are not coming back. Senior pilots have left and are not coming back. SA pilots are going overseas while others have moved on to retirement,” Leitch said.
He said the skills base in the industry was under “a lot of pressure” due to seasoned maintenance talent opting for early retirement.
“SA must make an enormous effort to develop skills. The country must bring new people into the industry and retain them rather than losing them to overseas operators who come poaching,” Leitch said.
Comair, which operates flights by British Airways (BA) and Kulula, was grounded for five days in March by the SA Civil Aviation Authority (Sacaa) after safety concerns including an engine and landing gear failure on some of its aircraft.
The suspension was lifted after Sacaa conducted an audit of Comair’s compliance with applicable civil aviation regulations. The company’s safety management systems and quality control management system was also inspected.
Last week, domestic low-cost carrier FlySafair grounded an aircraft to investigate a technical error after two flight diversions.
FlySafair, which maintains its own aircraft, has said despite the pressure experienced by the airline industry over the last two years, it has retained all its maintenance staff.
The domestic carrier said its maintenance team would work with Sacaa to determine the cause of the technical error, which proved to be a minor issue, to be able to release the aircraft back into service.
FlySafair chief marketing officer Kirby Gordon said no safety concern should be minimised, but he stressed that “the issue at hand here was really a very minor one”.
Gordon told Business Day that the aircraft was never officially grounded but was temporarily removed from commercial service while the issue was being addressed.
“This was really a normal bit of maintenance that is expected and planned for in the normal course of running an airline.”
The industry was not dropping its standards. “In fact, it’s quite the opposite. This incident is the perfect example of an aircraft operator acting cautiously and conservatively and doing the Right thing,” Gordon said.
“Aircraft are machines and they need maintenance from time to time. Nothing here posed a serious safety concern but both the airline and Sacaa have done the conscientious thing regardless of the fact that the issue was relatively minor.”
Leitch agreed that indeed this was a minor issue which would ordinarily not make news but was put under the spotlight because of the Comair incident.
National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said if these incidents were not attended to “on an urgent basis” they may cause “serious harm” to the industry.
The incidents raised several questions for the companies that service aircraft. “Some of these errors should have been detected before the aircraft was approved to fly. If these challenges are not resolved and continue, it may lead to our safety standards dropping, and that is deeply concerning,” Hlubi-Majola said.
“It is possible that the retrenchments that took place last year at SAAT [SAA Technical] had an affect because many airlines depended on SAAT. A lot of skills were lost as a result of job losses because the retrenchments focused on workers, and management positions remained largely intact.”
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