Passengers, airlines
Gatvol at huge chaos
Johannesburg - The Civil Aviation Authority wants to know why, in spite of six daily inspections, damage to a main runway at Cape Town International Airport was not noticed in good time to prevent the weekend's massive air chaos. Whatever the cause is of the "hole" in a Cape Town main runway, it will do little to appease the thousands of "tired, hungry and gatvol" passengers waiting at airports across South Africa since Sunday afternoon for flights to or from Cape Town. The airlines, too, are baying for blood as they struggle to eliminate their huge backlogs of passengers. It was revealed on Monday that scheduled maintenance was done on the runway as recently as Saturday night, and again early on Monday morning, hours after the runway was reopened to air traffic. Experts said that the "hole" in the runway surface could have led to an aviation disaster and massive loss of life if a fully loaded 747 passenger jet had landed on it.
While airlines struggled to clear the backlogs after thousands of passengers countrywide were stranded because of airport problems, fingers were increasingly being pointed at the Airports Company of SA (Acsa) and the quality of maintenance in Cape Town. Malaysian Airlines also reacted angrily to rumours that its 747-400 caused a 5mx6m piece of asphalt to "lift up" on the runway. The airline's district manager in Cape Town, Chan Cheong Eu, said that when Air Malaysia's flight landed at Buenos Aires, Argentina, after its flight from Cape Town there was "no damage to the plane". He said if it were true that the tail of their jet caused the hole in the ground, "today's news would not have been so simple". "In serious cases (where the tail hits the ground when taking off), the aircraft can break in two and cause total disaster," said Chan. Asphalt that lifts up, as apparently happened on Sunday, is "dangerous". An informed aviation source, specialising in cargo aircraft, commented: "The logical deduction is that the incident happened because of a lack of proper, sustained maintenance. "If the runway failed when a heavy (Boeing) 747 full of passengers landed on it, the consequences could have been fatal. "It probably would have yanked off the plane's undercarriage, making it impossible to steer," he said.
Rodney James, marketing manager of budget airline 1time, said on Monday that such a hole "does not suddenly appear" and should have been "spotted during routine maintenance". Comair's Gidon Novick said it was astonishing that Acsa's managing director Monhla Hlahla had made no comment about Sunday's events. "We demand a clear explanation. At present, there are only vague stories. We want to know what happened."
CAA incident inspector Gilbert Thwala said the CAA wanted to determine why the asphalt lifted. 'Not due to a lack of maintenance' "The fact that it was not spotted earlier raises questions about maintenance at the airport," he said. Acsa spokesperson Deidre Hendricks confirmed, meanwhile, that work was "recently" been done on the runway, but that it was "routine maintenance". Hendricks said the runway was checked six times a day and the "defect was definitely not due to a lack of maintenance". Acsa apparently are investigating the possibility that, besides environmental factors, the damage might have been the result of a "take-off, landing or jet-engine ignition" and the "stress this caused on the surface".
Passenger Jac Jacobs said his group had to sleep at Johannesburg International on Sunday night. "We have been stuck here since Sunday afternoon. Our flight was delayed several times without any reason or apology being offered," he said. "We were promised time and again that we would take off soon, simply to be informed a little later that it was still not possible." Jacobs, who was waiting for a Nationwide flight to Cape Town along with 82 other people, said no one from Acsa, which runs South Africa's airports, or Nationwide tried to help the stranded passengers. Nationwide was one of the airlines affected by the delays. Jacobs said: "They just told us that we were unable to fly and that we should go home. "That despite there being three small babies in the group. What alternatives were there at that time of the morning?" Nationwide spokesperson Rodger Whittle said his airline couldn't be held responsible for the delayed flights. "The situation was out of our control and that is why we didn't organise accommodation or food. "We can't afford to compensate people for something that we didn't cause. "Some of our staff worked non-stop for more than 24 hours to keep passengers informed. Often the passengers' expectations are unrealistic."