East London airport suspends flights for second time this month

Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) has denied that it played a major role in the suspension of flights at the King Phalo Airport in East London on Tuesday morning.

Flights resumed later in the day.

Airports Company of South Africa (Acsa) spokesperson Ernest Mulibana said the reason for the airport shutdown was “adverse weather conditions” that were “compounded by lapsed Air Traffic and Navigation Services procedures”.

“Acsa and ATNS are coordinating efforts to address these procedural lapses and restore normal flight operations promptly,” said Mulibana, in a statement issued after 1pm on Tuesday.

However, ATNS spokesperson Mphilo Dlamini said: “Flight disruptions at King Phalo Airport in East London today were not only associated with the instrument flight procedure maintenance programme.

“ATNS can confirm that flight procedures for the two runways in this airport are operational.

“This morning, the airport was affected by extreme inclement weather conditions, which were below the acceptable approach minimum. The cloud base was below 300ft, which necessitated missed approach (go-arounds) until the conditions improved.”

This was the second shutdown at the airport in less than a month.

Hundreds of travellers were stranded after safety authorities shut down the airport  on Tuesday, 8 October. ATNS was reviewing instrument landing procedures for the airport at the time, but these were published later that week.

Read more: All flights to and from East London’s King Phalo Airport suspended after crackdown by regulators

Between 20 and 30 flights land at King Phalo Airport each day and the facility is used by about 620,000 people a year. It is a busy link in the cargo flight chain that supports the province's manufacturing and automotive industries.

On Tuesday, six FlySafair flights to and from the airport were delayed.

ATNS is currently reviewing instrument landing procedures at George Airport in the Western Cape, which led to the cancellation of eight inbound and outbound flights at the airport on Monday.

Leander Kruger from the Democratic Alliance said they had asked for an intervention at national level to sort out the problems at King Phalo Airport. DM