South Africa’s budget airline FlySafair has fully refunded airfares and airport taxes to all passengers affected by a recent collapse in the fuel system at O.R Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg.
JOHANNESBURG AIRPORT FUEL COLLAPSE
On Monday 9 December Johannesburg’s primary airport hub suffered a fuel breakdown when the airport’s fuelling system collapsed.
The issue resulted in lengthy delays and cancelled flights at the start of the summer peak holiday travel season in South Africa.
FLYSAFAIR REFUNDS AFFECTED PASSENGERS
Low-cost carrier FlySafair wrote to Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) to request a refund of all passenger charges for flights delayed due to the disruption.
“We believe this situation was entirely preventable and that sufficient contingency systems should have been in place to avoid this failure. This is critical infrastructure, and incidents like this should not be allowed to occur,” says Kirby Gordon, Chief Marketing Officer at FlySafair.
While awaiting Acsa’s response, FlySafair has proactively credited affected customers with the value of the airport taxes they paid for their flights.
Customers will receive this credit as a travel voucher, which can be redeemed on future flight bookings.
MAJOR DISRUPTION
Jabulani Khambule, Acsa regional general manager responsible for the OR Tambo International Airport, said that 413 flights and 50 209 passengers were impacted by the fuel supply problem on Monday 9 December, with 31 flights throughout Acsa’s network also being cancelled because of the fuel supply problem.
This severely impacted the on-time performance of all airlines operating flights at the airport.
“Our on-time performance, which is normally 99%, dropped to 58.17% on the day,” Khambule said.
CAUSE OF FUEL SYSTEM BREAKDOWN
Khambule said a valve in the airport’s fuel supply system failed on Monday morning, preventing the fuel supply to aircraft.
According to Moneyweb, Khambule said this was caused by a broken shaft in the valve gearbox.
He said that Acsa had a spare shaft and replaced the broken shaft and restored fuel supply by about 13.00.
However, Khambule said it took until 20.30 on Monday to clear the flight backlog – caused by this issue.
This incident has serious impacts on airlines and also for the airport itself.
FLYSAFAIR AFFECTED BY JOHANNESBURG FUEL COLLAPSE
FlySafair had to cancel eight flights into and out of Johannesburg that day.
This disrupted many passengers and resulted in higher operating costs for the airline.
The award-winning low-cost airline has impeccable on-time flight performance figures.
