CAPE TOWN - The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) has allowed two South African Express aircraft to continue operations while the other remaining seven are up for inspection.
This development comes just over a month after the regional airline had its permits revoked when the CAA conducted an audit at SA Express and found that its maintenance section had severe cases of non-compliance.
This posed serious safety risks for passengers and nine planes were grounded.
In order to be allowed to operate as an airline again, SA Express had to undertake re-certification processes for both the AOC and AMO approvals.
The airline also had to ensure that all aircraft earmarked for operations had a Certificate of Airworthiness.
"With these two crucial certificates successfully reinstated‚ it means SA Express can now conduct scheduled commercial operations as an airline‚" the aviation authority said in a statement on Thursday.
The CAA’s Phindiwe Gwebu says SA Express still needs to present seven aircraft for airworthiness checks.
“They still need to present the other aircraft to us one-by-one and as soon as they do that, we will do our own inspections and decide whether they are airworthy.”