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Cape Town - The South African Civil Aviation Authority (Sacaa) has intensified its oversight over SA Express, according to a written reply provided in Parliament to a question posed by the DA to Minister of Transport Dipuo Peters.
At the same time, the implementation of the SA Express Corrective Action Plan is on-going and progressing well, according to the reply. Sacaa indicated that it has not picked up a repeat of the issues raised in the audit that led to the suspension of the operator’s Air Operator Certificate.
At the beginning of May the regional airline was grounded for 42 hours by Sacaa. The reasons given relate to the management and implementation of corrective actions and measures to rectify operational and maintenance issues identified during operations.
SA Express was given seven days to provide an adequate corrective action plan to address identified inefficiencies in its systems.
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The DA wanted to know from Peters what the full reasons were for the non-compliance of SA Express which led to the Sacaa grounding. The DA also wanted to know what follow-up inspections were undertaken and the results of these.
"Following the suspension of SA Express’ air operator certificate, Sacaa has intensified its oversight over this operator. Sacaa’s continued inspections included an audit of the organisation’s capabilities and internal control in relation to airline or flight operations and aircraft maintenance," according to the minister's reply.
Sacaa said in addition it continues to focus on monitoring the effective implementation of SA Express’ corrective action plan submitted following the suspension of its approval. Sacaa is also monitoring the airline's aircraft maintenance records and rectification of maintenance defects.
Inspections by Sacaa's safety oversight inspectors took place on June 2 and 3 2016.
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