The beleaguered Bitou municipality needs to cough up R500 000, money it does not have, to fix compliance failures that led to Plettenberg Bay Airport losing its commercial status.
A South African Civil Aviation Authority report saw the Plett Airport downgraded from category four to two which led to the cancellation of the only commercial airline operating in the popular tourist destination.
This week CemAir suspended operations citing Bitou Municipality’s inability to adhere to long standing compliance issues that led to the airport losing its commercial status.
Tourism organisations have slammed the downgrading as embarrassing and warned of the financial and employment implications.
However, Bitou has hit back at the airline, stating that as a stakeholder it bore some responsibility to assist it in implementing some of the recommendations.
“The main reason to engage the services of a commercial entity like CemAir was aimed at addressing the expertise that we do not have in-house as a municipality. Unfortunately, some of these did not materialise as expected and resulted in the downgrading,” said municipal manager Lonwabo Ngoqo.
“CemAir as a strategic partner was also expected to play a role in assisting us to be in a position to retain the grading as it largely benefited them as the commercial partner. They were supposed to provide guidance and also some of the equipment that was identified in the findings. CemAir’s statement is more geared towards blaming the Bitou Municipality instead of providing solutions because they are the main beneficiaries.”
The airport’s manager James Sijama said: “The airport has always been a category two and we only moved up at the request of a commercial airliner that saw potential in the market.”
“But an upgrade to category four required a lot of things that spoke to compliance issues and all the findings by CAA were on things that were mostly budgetary.
“We have come up with a strategy and it will take around two months to address some of the issues and we are busy with implementation that would require input from CemAir as the main stakeholder.
“Our future plans are to outsource the management of the airport and we are in talks to try and see this through but the compliance alone is going to be costly. Roughly the ballpark figure is R500 000 which is money that we do not have and will have to look at, which projects can be re-prioritised to make this happen.
“But as it stands, the withdrawal of CemAir won’t cost the municipality any money, the town will lose out but not the municipality. The airport is still open for private landings.”
While the municipality will not feel any direct financial losses, businesses that depend on tourism are worried about the developments.
Chief executive for Plett Tourism, Patty Butterworth, said the downgrade was embarrassing and will create hardship for the hospitality industry.
“It’s shameful to the hard-working people of Plett, and it’s a slap in the face to the Garden Route,” she said.
“Immediate job loss includes CemAir employees stationed on the ground in Plettenberg Bay. More disturbing than job loss is the potential loss of economic value and income generation to the town. The closure of the commercial flights will negatively affect real estate, schools, restaurants, professional services, retail and of course, tourism.
“The suspension affects all towns along the Garden Route as these flights are crucial for many businessmen and women in the area and for the tourism industry of neighbouring towns. With national stakeholders like WESGRO and SA Tourism focused on the Garden Route as a key selling point to international trade, the suspension will be seen as a negative and may cause tour operators and travel professionals to re-think their itineraries when choosing South Africa.”
The Plettenberg Bay RatePayers Association said the problems at the airport are long-standing.
“Two years ago the airport fire sub-station was half-built but fully paid for. The contractor never finished the job, with no steps taken to recover the money or to hold the people responsible to account,” said the association’s board member Steve Pattinson.
“The resolution of the CAA actions will be costly and it will require investment from all parties, including Bitou, CemAir and VRST (fuel company). The issue with VRST is that they have no contract and although they are keen to invest, they will not do so until they have assurances of their ongoing role at the airport.
“Plettenberg Bay has not had Jet A1 available for a month, and is on its last drops of Avgas, but that situation will soon be remedied.”