Passengers have again been stranded, this time at King Phalo Airport, due to ATNS’s ongoing failure to timeously renew its Instrument Flight Procedures.

Weather conditions limited visibility at the airport resulting in the suspension of flights at East London earlier this week.

“ATNS procedures for operations to King Phalo Airport in certain weather and visibility conditions have been suspended by the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) due to a failure to have the procedures renewed as per regulations,” FlySafair explained on an X post, apologising to its affected passengers.

FlySafair said it was actively working with both Acsa and ATNS to resolve the situation, however the disruption is part of a longer-term ATNS procedural backlog.

Last month, during the Aviation Africa Summit at Sandton Convention Centre, Rodger Foster, CEO and MD of Airlink, called out ATNS for the suspension and its severe impact on South African carriers, and blemishing Airlink’s previously spotless ‘on-time’ record.

“This is an appeal to ATNS and to the SACAA. We're an industry running scheduled airline, scheduled air services. We need instrument flight procedures. You can't land at an airport on schedule unless you've got instrument procedures… We can't go to East London when there's bad weather unless there are instrument flight procedures,” said Foster.

According to an ATNS press release of October 10, the Instrument Flight Procedures for Runway 11 at King Phalo Airport have been submitted and upliftment of the suspension is expected after regulatory publication.