Cape Town - Cape Town is facing an energy crisis with jet fuel delivery delays threatening to to ground flights to Cape Town International Airport, and the high price of diesel forcing MyCiTi to suspend bus services in several areas.
The jet fuel delays are blamed on choppy seas delaying the arrival of the shipment, which has led to the imposition of rationing, and is likely to result in disruptions to airline schedules or even cancelled flights.
The Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) said the problems could in turn have a negative impact on the airline industry and the economy at a time when neither of them can afford it.
Airports Company SA (ACSA) spokesperson Gopolang Peme said that while they continued to engage fuel suppliers to provide additional fuel to the airport, they were told yesterday that adverse sea conditions persisted and might cause further delays.
Peme said fuel suppliers had in the meantime delivered an additional two million litres of jet fuel to the airport this week and that the airport continued to operate at 4.5 days’ worth of jet fuel stock.
AASA CEO Aaron Munetsi said while they appreciated the efforts being made by ACSA to manage fuel stocks at the airport, the country was vulnerable because of its reliance on imported jet fuel.
Munetsi called on the government and fuel suppliers to move with urgency and put in place a far more robust resilience plan to ensure sufficient stocks of aviation fuel were always available for airlines.
“Although our local and regional short-haul airlines are able to carry more fuel than optimally required for a single flight to maintain their schedules, in doing so they must incur additional costs as the extra fuel load increases the overall weight of each plane, in turn burning more fuel just to carry the extra contingency supply.”
He said airlines were already struggling with a more than 100% rise in the price of jet fuel, higher finance charges and interest rates, as well as increased labour and other costs.
Finance and Economic Opportunities MEC Mireille Wenger said that she had spoken with the airport’s management who told her the current fuel shortages were short term and not systemic, and that extra fuel storage capacity was being brought online at CTIA ahead of the tourism peak season.
Reports of the worrying shortage came as the Province shared optimism for a bumper summer tourism season with increased flights to CTIA.
Wenger announced that 184 international flights per week were expected between November 2022 and the end of December 2022, increasing to 191 flights per week between January 2023 and March 2023.
“This amounts to roughly 1.56 million two-way seats, with the potential to generate tourism spend of an estimated R7.9 billion.”
The news of the fuel crisis came as the MyCiTi bus service announced it would reduce or suspend some services in the City Bowl and the West Beach area of Table View from October 1, due to rising fuel costs.
In a statement MyCiTi said routes 114 and 115 routes would be suspended in urgent response to the growing cost of providing services, resulting from significant increases to the price of diesel in recent months.
MyCiTi also announced there would be a mandatory fare increase on November 1 triggered by the ongoing, high cost of diesel.
Asked whether the suspension of services infringed on the contract that the City has with MyCiTi to provide transport in these areas, Mayco Member for Urban Mobility Rob Quintas said low use influenced the decision.
Quintas said the City’s Urban Mobility Directorate sometimes assesses and adjusts the MyCiTi service to better suit the supply and demand and that this was a strategy to ensure the long-term sustainability of the service, while being financially responsible.
SA National Taxi Council (Santaco) provincial chairperson Mandla Hermanus said if the routes marked for suspension or reduction had been operating efficiently and effectively, there would have been no reason to cut them.
He said despite getting billions from the government, MyCiTi was unable to absorb fuel hikes, yet the unsubsidised taxi industry had only once adjusted fares during the year and had no intentions to do so again until next year.
“Maybe it’s high time the government ensured that the taxi industry functioned efficiently and professionally, instead of trying to replace it with these expensive buses and the expensive infrastructure that is put in place, only for those buses to be withdrawn because the price of diesel has risen.
“I mean, it doesn’t make sense.”