Morning lazi Peeps! Something Interesting........ South African private air charter operators are being blocked from carrying passengers to or from their final destinations by Mozambican airport authorities when landing at Maputo airport. Evan Baillie, CEO of Federal Air, says despite the airline going through the lengthy process of obtaining the appropriate licences from the Mozambican civil aviation authority head office to fly passengers onward to their island resorts, there have been incidents where the airline has been stopped at Maputo airport by aviation authorities, who claim the clearance certificate is invalid and threaten the operator to “get out of our air space or we will ground you”. “It would seem small local aviation companies are putting pressure on aviation authorities to protect local operators and prevent SA private charters from coming in and ‘taking away their business’,” he says. The issue has been raised in the discussion forum, Avcom. One participant says: “Authorities now claim that an aircraft is not allowed to land at multiple points, meaning if you need to get to a place that is not a port of entry, you will have to fly as far as that point, and then continue on with a ‘local operator’ to your intended destination. Maputo is a cauldron of confusion at the moment.” Baillie relates one incident where clients were stranded at the resort because the airline was stopped in Maputo. “We had to have the clients driven to the border, near Kosi Bay, cross it, and from there shuttle them to a small airstrip and have them flown home. Not only is this a massive inconvenience to the client but a costly exercise for Federal Air. “We are getting to the stage where we have to tell the resorts, sorry guys, we’re not coming to Mozambique. It’s not worth our while. “There is no doubt that if this continues, it will seriously impact on tourism to the country,” Baillie says.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 06:35:56 +0000
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