Flight delays continue at South African airports due to the suspension of instrument approach procedures, while Air Traffic and Navigation Services’ (ATNS) plan to complete its maintenance backlog awaits industry comment, and finally, implementation.

Minister of Transport, Barbara Creecy, held a meeting late last week with aviation industry representatives for ATNS to share its turnaround plan to address its backlog in instrument flight procedure maintenance and the ongoing flight delays at airports across the country.

Industry representatives, including Barsa, AASA, SACAA and Acsa, were taken through the plan and received updates on approvals and pending approvals for various airports' flight procedures. The aviation industry has until September 16 to offer comment on the plan.

Minister Creecy is to receive biweekly reports on the progress and implementation of the plan.

Meanwhile, the ATNS backlog has continued to cause flight delays at airports throughout the country where certain instrument landing systems are still not in place.

Airlink, FlySafair and Acsa used X (formerly Twitter) to notify the public on the cancellation of a slew of flights at King Phalo Airport in East London on Thursday, September 12

“Safety is paramount, but it should not be used as an excuse for poor planning and task management,” Aaron Munetsi, CEO of AASA, told Tourism Update more than a month ago.

A visual approach may only be carried out if pilots have clear visibility from about 610m above the ground. Poor visibility due to weather at an airport means an instrument approach might be required. It is these instrument approaches that are suspended at several airports.