South Africa’s aviation authorities have rushed to stabilise fuel supply, power continuity and air traffic operations ahead of this week’s G20 Summit, following a series of disruptions at OR Tambo (JNB) and Cape Town (CPT) International Airports.
Transport Minister, Barbara Creecy, hosted a media briefing at JNB to address concerns regarding essential aviation infrastructure, including fuel supplies, back-up power and suspended procedures.
Accompanied by Acsa CEO, Mpumi Mpofu, and ATNS Chief Financial Officer and Acting CEO, Matome Moholola, Creecy sought to reassure the public and the trade that South Africa’s airports were prepared to accommodate the incoming G20 traffic.
Cape Town fuel shortage
On November 14, it was confirmed that CPT had been operating on a restricted supply of jet fuel due to a dispute between an imported fuel supplier and Sars, leaving the airport’s whole fuel supply dependent on the Astron refinery.
“Astron has its own clients that it is contracted to produce jet fuel for. But now they have to produce over and above what it is contracted to and what the current airlines pay for, because some of our international airlines are not able to get any jet fuel,” George Mothema, CEO of Board of Airlines Representatives of Southern Africa (Barsa), told Travel News.
While domestic airlines’ fuel supply remains secure due to existing contracts with local refineries, international airlines operating at the airport are forced to establish ad-hoc arrangements with Astron for additional fuel, explained Mothema, or they can tanker fuel from JNB, as per Acsa’s interim solution.
During the briefing, Creecy said JNB had stockpiled a fuel reserve of 54 million litres to accommodate the arriving heads of state. However, it was not made clear whether this reserve would also be able to alleviate the shortage at Cape Town, should international airlines opt for tankering from Johannesburg.
According to Barsa, about four or five international airlines are impacted by the fuel shortage. Lufthansa Group published a notice warning passengers that Lufthansa and Edelweiss might announce short-term schedule changes, while United confirmed that it had secured sufficient fuel supply for its Cape Town flights until the end of November.
Mothema explained that the shortage had had a massive impact on airlines as they were not able to plan their schedules and incurred additional costs if there was no reliable fuel supply.
“Tankering at OR Tambo becomes an expense for the airlines because they will have to take a detour from Cape Town to Johannesburg, which requires additional fuel and additional charges to Acsa and ATNS to land at the airport, for the slots provided and the airspace management,” said Mothema.
He said that the security of supply was essential to attract airlines and reassure them that the infrastructure in the country would enable them to operate their services.
OR Tambo outages
On November 11 and 16, OR Tambo International Airport experienced power outages that impacted the airport’s baggage-handling and check-in systems.
Creecy said the disruptions stemmed from failures “upstream within Eskom’s network”.
“These interruptions affected a wide area of the Ekurhuleni Municipality, including Isando, the airport’s main incoming supply, and Kempton Park, our alternative supply. As a result, both of OR Tambo’s primary feeders were lost, with surrounding areas such as Spartan, Glen Marais, Van Riebeeck Park, and the CBD,” said Creecy.
Despite passengers experiencing challenges with checking in and receiving their baggage after their flights, Creecy claimed that the airport immediately transitioned to its back-up power systems.
“Our contingency systems responded exactly as designed, maintaining safety and operational continuity throughout the disruption.”
Suspended procedures and flow control
OR Tambo was also one of many airports to experience flight delays and cancellations due to suspended instrument flight procedures, which prevented aircraft from taking off and landing amid inclement weather conditions.
While ATNS Chief Financial Officer and Acting CEO, Matome Moholola, assured that “all procedures and systems are working as they should”, Creecy emphasised that reports from the South African Weather Services indicated that Johannesburg would not experience rainy weather over the weekend.
“We are expecting fine weather over the course of the next few days and the rain seems to have left us in Johannesburg and moved to the Eastern Cape and also KwaZulu-Natal, so we're not expecting that there should be major flight disruptions between now and Sunday,” said Creecy.
Furthermore, Moholola confirmed that, despite ongoing challenges with flow control at JNB, ATNS had arranged for necessary capacity to manage the traffic flow at the airport during G20.
“We are not expecting disruptions in commercial flights as scheduled commercial flights have been integrated into our overall flight plans to ensure that ordinary citizens who might want to travel at this time will not be inconvenienced,” said Creecy.
