Richards Bay Airport was yesterday afternoon (March 7) downgraded from its status as a Category 5 airport until further notice.

This means that it may no longer allow scheduled airline services to take off or land there.

“The CAA has indeed downgraded the airport due to a fire engine having broken down, which means the airport is unable to provide the mandatory fire and rescue services of a Category 5 airport,” said a source.

Airlink is the only airline providing scheduled services to the airport. An Airlink spokesperson confirmed to Tourism Update that services had been halted.

He said: “Airlink is obliged to cancel flights to Richards Bay until the CAA lifts the restrictions on the airport and confirms that the firefighting infrastructure is at the correct level. It’s impossible for the airline to say when the flights to Richards Bay will resume.”

The first information of the downgrade came from a travel agent posting on social media at 16h30 yesterday that passengers were stranded at Richards Bay.

The Airlink spokesperson said agents should get in touch with the airline if they had ticketed passengers.