Johannesburg - South African Airways (SAA) has cancelled flights to East London due to bad weather, the airline said on Sunday.
“The cancellations were as a result of adverse weather conditions in and around East London. The conditions at the East London Airport were below landing requirements and the airport's glide slope is not in working order,” said spokesperson Tlali Tlali.
A glide slope is a ground-based device that forms part of the instrument landing system and provides precision guidance to an aircraft that is approaching a particular runway.
“The glide slope plays a vital role in the safe landing of an aircraft in low visibility conditions due to rain, fog, snow or other similar natural elements,” said Tlali.
Flight SA 471, which departed Johannesburg at 10.04am and was destined to land in East London at 11.35am, had to be diverted to Port Elizabeth Airport.
“After a wait of just over an hour the aircraft departed Port Elizabeth for a second attempted landing in East London, but could not as the weather conditions had not improved as anticipated when departing Port Elizabeth.”
The flight was diverted back to Johannesburg.
A second flight - SA 475 - departed Johannesburg at 2.40pm for East London following reports that weather conditions were improving.
“However, on approaching East London it was noted that the weather conditions were still not suitable for a safe landing and as a result the aircraft had to return to Johannesburg,” said Tlali.
He said a decision was then taken to cancel the subsequent flights - SA 476 and SA 480.
He said SAA has continuously monitored the situation and the weather was reported to be improving at 7pm.
“Preparations have been made to resume operations with flight SA 481 which is set to depart Johannesburg at 7pm.
“In addition, arrangements have been made to deploy a bigger aircraft in order to accommodate tomorrow morning, as many passengers as possible who could not travel today due to flight cancellations.” - Sapa