Flights delayed for hours at OR Tambo International after refuelling system fails

Thousands of irate passengers at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg experienced long flight delays on Monday, while the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) calmly passed the buck, with a few announcements to the effect of “Please contact your airline.”

Financial therapist Saul Smith from Cape Town was one of those passengers.

Smith arrived early at 10.30am for his flight and was met with “absolute chaos. I was working in the lounge when at some point I looked around and realised there were a lot more people in the airport than usual. Then I saw an article online and at that point, people just started losing their marbles,” he told Daily Maverick.

Acsa put out a media statement at 12.43 on Monday afternoon, advising that “due to refuelling challenges at OR Tambo International Airport, airlines are currently unable to refuel aircraft as normal. As a result, some flights may experience delays”, but communication on the ground was scant.

Smith said there was very little to no communication from Acsa except for about three broadcast messages telling affected passengers to contact their airlines.

“People were confused and tempers started boiling over. Restaurants were packed and a waitress told me they might run out of beer,” he said.

Airport staff first told irate passengers that there was no fuel, and later said it was “a mechanical issue and only a specialist engineer could solve the problem”.

‘Absolute nightmare’

Smith said because of the lack of communication, passengers were running around looking for their departure gates.

“The later flights arriving from Cape Town fuelled up in advance because they were aware of the problem but we still sat on the runway for an hour or so because there was a backlog of luggage. It was an absolute nightmare,” he said.

Lerissa Govender had a flight leaving for Durban at 9.55am. “I got to the airport at 7.30am and my flight only left at 3.45pm,” she said.

Airlink sent out a media statement at 3.30pm, which pointed out that all airlines operating at OR Tambo airport were equally affected.

“Airlink apologises to customers for the inconvenience and disruptions to its flights today caused by the failure of the airport’s refuelling system at OR Tambo International Airport this morning. While the disruptions are beyond Airlink’s control, we are doing the best we can to clear the backlog of delayed flights within the constraints of safety regulations such as crew duty limitation,” the statement read.

Karin Murray, a marketing manager at Airlink Africa, said the refuelling system had been temporarily repaired but warned that there would still be “delays with boarding and disembarkation of flights, checked-baggage handling, cleaning and the provisioning of flights”.

The backup bypass line promised two years ago

Shortly after 6pm, Acsa sent out a communication to announce that it was “pleased to announce that the fuel system at OR Tambo International Airport is now fully operational. Fuel trucks are currently en route to the apron, and normal operations have resumed.”

However, less than 45 minutes later, the Airlines Association of South Africa (Aasa) called them out, saying it “noted with grave concern the failure of the main valve in the refuelling system at OR Tambo International Airport today, causing lengthy delays and cancelled flights at the start of the summer peak holiday travel season”.

“Although Aasa appreciates the efforts being made by the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) to restore fuel supplies at what is Southern Africa’s busiest air travel and air cargo gateway, we urge Acsa to expedite the installation of the backup bypass line that was promised as part of the fuel supply resilience plan after the previous main supply valve failure in December 2022,” said Aaron Munetsi, the chief executive of Aasa.

Munetsi said that in the interim, local and regional short-haul member airlines were doing whatever they could to mitigate the impact of the day’s disruptions.

“Some have been able to tanker extra fuel (carry more than optimally required for a single flight) on flights to Johannesburg, but because all of the aircraft parking bays are occupied, many arriving aircraft have been directed to park on taxiways and await buses to disembark their passengers and unload baggage.

“At least one flight was able to take off from OR Tambo and fly, via Lanseria to refuel, to Cape Town. Although Acsa has temporarily opened the fuel line, there is a very long backlog of flights to be refuelled,” he said.

A source told Daily Maverick that diverting planes to Lanseria was not an option because that airport had limited fuel, a shorter runway and the aprons were not big enough to accommodate larger planes.

At 7.30pm last night, X user Yolanda tweeted that her flight was meant to depart at 6.10pm.

“We have not moved an inch and no announcements have been made about how long the delay will be,” she said, followed shortly by another tweet noting that flights meant to leave at noon had only just left the airport. DM