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Airport up, up and here to stay
Work on getting the Plettenberg Bay Airport up and running for commercial flights again is in its final stages and flights are expected to resume early next month.
The town’s airport was downgraded by the South African Civil Aviation Authority (Sacaa) earlier this year to below the minimum category required for commercial flights.
The reason for the suspension was the ongoing failure of the airport to address outstanding issues from Sacaa inspections, some several years old.
Airline operator CemAir, which has been offering flights between Plettenberg Bay and major city centres for the past seven years, announced in August that it had to suspend all of its flights into the Plettenberg Bay Airport with immediate effect. Since the downgrade, CemAir and the Bitou Municipality agreed to work together to restore the airport’s former status.
The two parties said they entered into a binding agreement to restore the Plettenberg Bay Airport licence and return CemAir’s scheduled airline flights to the airport. In terms of the agreement, CemAir would engage with Sacaa to, jointly with the Bitou Municipality, manage the process of rectifying all identified non-conformances.
As the owner of the airport, the municipality vowed to provide its full cooperation and support to expedite this process. In a joint statement last week CemAir and the Bitou Municipality said continual progress had been made toward the closure of non-conformance findings raised by Sacaa.
“We are pleased to announce that the implementation of corrections is in its final stages,” the statement read.
They said firefighters were finalising their training and would be establishing a fire training area at the airport. “Following an emergency coordination exercise involving multiple emergency service providers across Bitou, we believe all requirements will have been met.”
Sacaa has been requested to perform the required follow-up inspection on Friday 29 October. “Should all regulatory requirements be satisfied, it is expected that the airport licence will be restored shortly thereafter. This will pave the way for commercial airline flights to return to the airport.”
Based on these timelines, CemAir’s service from Johannesburg and Cape Town to Plettenberg Bay is expected to recommence on Friday 12 November.
“The Bitou Municipality is delighted with the progress made and looks forward to having commercial flights before the start of the festive season. The plans to outsource the airport in the medium to long term are also progressing well,” the statement read.