Transport minister Barbara Creecy has convened an urgent meeting of all aviation entities in a bid to resolve the frequent flight delays bedevilling the sector at various airports in the country.
Creecy met the Air Traffic Navigation Services (ATNS), Airports Company SA (Acsa) and SA Civil Aviation Authority (Sacaa) to address the ongoing delays.
“In the meeting, the minister emphasised the need for the ATNS to get to the root cause of this problem,” the department said.
“The meeting also agreed that ATNS must, as a matter of urgency, develop a comprehensive plan for consideration and approval by the minister.”
The plan must be costed with realistic time frames and indicate the technical capacity required to review all flight instrument procedures. The ATNS was instructed to submit the plan in two weeks from the date of the meeting.
At the meeting held on August 20, the ATNS gave an update on work it was doing to avoid the delays, which have cost companies and individual travellers.
It said that at the OR Tambo International Airport, where six procedures were suspended, four had now been approved by the Sacaa with the remaining two going through final adjustments before being resubmitted to the regulator.
Flight procedures are necessary tools used by the ATNS to manage and direct the take-off and landing of flights at airports.
The ATNS said at the key Cape Town International Airport it was waiting for Sacaa to lift the suspension of two procedures. It did not say what the procedures are.
Future doubtful
Similar approvals were awaited at the George Airport. It said it had to resubmit procedure approvals for the Polokwane International Airport while at the Kimberley and Mthatha airports “procedures are going through internal quality controls before submission to Sacaa”.
Meanwhile, the future of Acsa IT head Mthokozisi Mncwabe is in doubt after it terminated the corruption-tainted R115m biometric contract it entered into with French technology company Idemia.
The technology company was last year selected by Acsa to implement its system in SA’s three main international airports: OR Tambo, Cape Town and King Shaka, including the border clearance process using the latest e-Gates technologies.
However, no sooner had the contract been awarded than allegations of impropriety emerged in which the French group was accused of having a dual position as “referee and player” in a multimillion-rand contract with the state-owned entity.
Acsa on Tuesday confirmed it had cancelled the contract.
The contract termination is in line with the conditions of the service level agreement, which allows for a 60-day notice period allowing Idemia to conclude the work currently under way, Acsa said.
“The biometric and digital identity technology project remains key to Acsa’s short to medium-term strategy to ensure a seamless and efficient customer experience connecting passengers to their next destinations, opportunities, and goals.
“As such, the company intends to pursue the project in the near future. Acsa remains committed to the best interests of good corporate governance, transparency, and fairness as we continue with an independent investigation.”
Acsa earlier this month said its preliminary investigation had found that there was prima facie evidence of wrongdoing regarding the biometric and digital identity technology project.
It said the findings were the basis for placing its chief information officer on precautionary suspension, to allow the entity to conduct further investigation and “report back to the public on our findings”.
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