Bitou Municipality has invited commercial airlines to submit proposals to conduct operations from Plettenberg Bay Airport (PBZ) for a lease period of five years.

CemAir launched flights to PBZ in March 2014 and is the only airline operating flights to the airport. In March this year, the Bitou Municipality gave CemAir notice to terminate operations to the airport for allegedly failing to honour an agreement, but the notice was withdrawn a few days later due to a public outcry on social media and strong criticism from Plett Tourism.

Airlink operated a scheduled service to PBZ from October 1994 until January 2004. The service operated every day and flew up to five times a day on some days during peak periods. “The main reason we discontinued the service was that the airport did not meet the South African Civil Aviation Authority’s (SACAA) operational safety regulations and standards following multiple audits by the SACAA. The airport was then declassified and scheduled air services could no longer operate there,” says Rodger Foster, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Airlink.

Foster still believes there is a viable and sustainable market at PBZ and says Airlink would ideally like to operate a larger aircraft, the four-engine Avro RJ85, on the route. “However, this would entail some upgrading of the airport and, in particular, improving security and emergency services’ capability,” he says.

Kirby Gordon, Vice President: Sales and Distribution of FlySafair, says the carrier would not be able to operate PBZ flights as it only had one size of aircraft, which is slightly too large to operate to the airport in a way that is economically viable. “Even operating a few flights a week would flood the market with far more capacity than it has ever known. As a result, we would have to charge very high prices just to break even, which would, in turn, lower demand even more,” he says.

Gordon adds that, on an even more practical level, the runway in PBZ and the airport facilities are not of a sufficient standard for FlySafair to operate its Boeing 737 aircraft there. “I stand to be corrected, but I believe that the runway would be too short and the fire facilities do not meet the required grade for our jets,” he says.