Fuel tanks were still dry at Cape Town International airport on Sunday, South African Airways (SAA) said.
Tanks ran dry on Saturday, causing airlines and passengers major inconvenience — Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan apparently suffered a delay of six hours on a flight to Johannesburg.
SAA general manager of flight operations Colin Jordaan said the airline — and others — was caught unawares.
As a result, 139 passengers had to be accommodated at Cape hotels overnight as there was no fuel to fly them from the city.
Jordaan said the crisis is the result of the Caltex/Chevron refinery in Cape Town being out of commission and fuel having to be shipped to the city.
”Unfortunately this situation is beyond SAA’s control as the airline is not at all involved in South Africa’s fuel supplies,” Jordaan said.
Jordaan said after being tanked by ship to the Cape, Caltex/Chevron has to blend in additives to bring the fuel up to the correct jet-fuel specification.
The batch due to be sent to Cape Town airport early on Saturday contained too many additives and could not be dispatched.
The fuel is being mixed with ”clean” fuel in order to bring it back to specification.
Jordaan said SAA was told at about midnight that this would take until Sunday afternoon.
The first fuel was now expected at 4pm, he said.
Jordaan said SAA has put ”serious contingencies” in place and is tanking down fuel on aircraft from Johannesburg to refuel those stranded there.
Aircraft are also carrying extra fuel to fly back from Cape Town without having to refuel there and the SAA flight to Frankfurt has been routed through Johannesburg — to pick up fuel — before flying on.
Special dispensation has been obtained to land in Germany after curfew.
”It’s another difficult day,” Jordaan said. ”Yesterday we were caught totally unawares. We usually have some warning.”
He said he hoped passengers would on Sunday not be inconvenienced with more than an hour or two. — Sapa