Flights resume at Cape Town airport after Sunday power outage, probe under way

On Sunday night, flights were unable to land at or depart from Cape Town International Airport for several hours due to a power supply problem that affected runway lights, airside fire rescue and air traffic navigation services.

Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) confirmed at 1am on Monday that the runway lights and navigational aids had returned to service, allowing 11 aircraft to land at the airport.

Ernest Mulibana, a corporate communication strategist at Acsa, confirmed later on Monday that the situation at the airport had improved significantly as flights were landing and departing. Technical issues were still being resolved.

The cause of the outage is being investigated by a team of technicians and experts as they continue with permanent repairs and restoration of the network at the airport.

“The idea is to have this matter restored as soon as possible because there is a timeline and at the moment we are still figuring out what happened,” said Mulibana.

Mulibana was not able to provide the exact number of flights that had been delayed or cancelled, saying that after the runway lights and navigational aids were returned, United Airlines, Delta and South African Airways flights had successfully departed.

Travellers are encouraged to download the Acsa mobile app for live flight information and communicate with their respective airlines for updates.

Daily Maverick reported early on Monday that FlySafair had said in a travel update that its operations centre had been alerted to a power outage at Cape Town International Airport at about 8.30pm on Sunday.

“At this stage, we are engaging with Acsa to understand the cause and expected duration of the outage,” the airline said, noting that “this affects all airlines operating to and from this airport”.

The airline said later on Monday that due to the outage flights were unable to land or depart, “causing significant disruption to multiple airlines’ operations”. Eleven FlySafair flights had been affected.

“Six flights that were already airborne when the power failure occurred were diverted to Port Elizabeth, two flights were diverted to Johannesburg, and the remainder were kept on the ground. The sudden influx of flights into Port Elizabeth, which is not typically equipped to handle such a large number of aircraft and passengers, posed a significant logistical challenge,” it said.

“Despite these challenges, our teams worked tirelessly to manage the situation and provide as much support as possible to affected passengers.” DM