Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) announced that the main runway at Cape Town International Airport (CPT) reopened this morning (October 13), following an incident in which an aircraft developed a technical issue on the runway yesterday.

The main runway was closed just after 14h00 in the afternoon, leaving only the secondary runway available to small-gauge aircraft. As a result, both arriving and departing flights were impacted.

Following the removal of the aircraft and an inspection of the runway, Acsa teams started a clean-up operation yesterday afternoon. Additional cleaning and degreasing activities were completed overnight on a larger area of the runway.

“Acsa is governed by very stringent international safety and environmental standards, therefore the clean-up operation was very critical to Acsa as passenger safety is our main priority,” said Shaheed Regal, Acting Regional GM at CPT.

Following a comprehensive friction assessment, it was determined that all residue had been removed and Acsa reported that the runway was reopened at 07h00 this morning.

“We would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all our customers and stakeholders for any inconvenience caused. Travellers are requested to make use of the Acsa app or contact their airlines directly for flight updates and information,” Acsa said in a press release.