Get the act together

For months now this newspaper has published ongoing complaints from passengers flying SA Express on the Johannesburg/Richards Bay route. These range from serious safety issues, to lost baggage, delayed departures, cancelled flights, rude and inept baggage handlers and hopeless service generally. The airline has in all cases promised to rectify the problems, assured us that they will never again occur and that the travelling public must rest assured that they are secure in the care of SA Express. The latest folly is the report of a local passenger Neville Loosemore, whose flight last week took off with a flat tyre which he reported to the flight attendant well before take-off, initially to no avail. To the pilot’s everlasting credit he heeded Loosemore’s warnings and abandoned his plan to land in Richards Bay where the runway is inadequate to handle a crippled aircraft, backtracking to Johannesburg where the flight had originated. There another tyre burst on landing. We are seldom able in these cases to apportion blame and as this newspaper gets no feedback at all from the management after such incidents, we can only record our extreme disbelief at the dangerous bungling taking place. We have reported that regular fliers between Richards Bay and the interior have long ago switched their business to the new King Shaka Airport. At this rate more will follow, never to return to support the local franchise. This should effectively put paid to the grand plans of re-establishing Richards Bay as an international airport. The catalogue of woes besetting this airline, and its callous lack of response to public needs, has lost it all credibility it ever had. In this day and age, getting your act together is the name of the game.

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