Fans miss Cup semifinal after Durban airport delays

Five planeloads of football fans headed for the Soccer World Cup semifinal between Spain and Germany suffered severe delays on
Wednesday at Durban’s King Shaka international airport, forcing some fans to miss the match.

Four planes from Johannesburg and one from Cape Town—thought to be carrying around 400 passengers in total—were delayed after the airport was swamped by arrivals, airport operations director Bongani Maseko told The Associated Press.

He said the problem was caused by the large numbers of supporters arriving at the airport for the World Cup semifinal.

All five planes were eventually allowed to land and given a police escort to the stadium, though too late for many fans to see Spain’s 1-0 victory.

Smaller aircraft were allowed to land and disembark passengers before taking off again and “parking” at the old Durban International airport, Naidoo said.

“We did have some delays which were compounded by the fact we had air traffic congestion,” airport spokesperson Colin Naidoosaid. “At a certain stage air traffic control decided to close arrivals to the airport.

“Some fans didn’t manage to get to the game because we had to turn those aircraft back.”

Naidoo said planes were usually allotted a landing slot and said there were not enough slots for the aircraft that arrived.

“We had lots of air traffic from the two countries that are playing,” he said.

Maseko apologised to supporters who missed the game.—Sapa-AP

See our gallery of Wednesday’s game.