Airline Cuts Back On Routes
Nthambeleni Gabara
12 January 2010


Pretoria — SA Airlink has announced it will permanently discontinue some of its routes in the country.

The carrier said it had been exploring various business-sustaining scenarios and contingencies. These include scenarios involving a variety of fleet and route changes.

Flights will no longer take place between Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein, Bloemfontein and George and Johannesburg and Mala-Mala.

Durban to George, Port Elizabeth to East London, Nelspruit to Livingston and Cape Town to Upington routes are currently under evaluation.

In December, the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) grounded 14 of the carrier's Jetstream aircraft by suspending their airworthiness certificates. This followed a number of incidences involving SA Airlink aircraft.

However, last Friday one of the aircraft successfully completed a re-certification process.

According to SA Airlink, the SACAA had ascertained that each maintenance task required through the history of the aircraft had been accomplished, that all airworthiness directives had been embodied, and that all serialised components were traceable and were within their specific in-service life limitation.

None of the remaining Jetstream aircraft have been inspected as yet.