SA Grounds Mugabe Plane, Demands Foreign Operators Permit
HARARE and Pretoria were on the brink of a full-on diplomatic row Saturday after a South African Airways plane was grounded in Harare, a day after South Africa seized an Air Zimbabwe aircraft.
SA 025 was due to depart Harare for Johannesburg at 0720hrs Saturday but after the aircraft had been loaded with its cargo and passengers, officials from the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ) ordered the pilots to abandon take-off.
Passengers endured a nearly two-hour wait before they were ordered off the aircraft.
At the centre of the row is a “foreign operators licence”, issued by civil aviation authorities in every country where an airline operates. Although the permit is a standing requirement, its possession is rarely enforced, according to one pilot who spoke to New Zimbabwe.com.
Air Zimbabwe’s 1855hrs regular service from OR Tambo International Airport to Harare on Friday was rudely put off after inspectors from the South African Civil Aviation Authority demanded the permit – which the airline does not have.
The decision by the South Africans effectively shut the Johannesburg-Harare; Johannesburg-Bulawayo and Johannesburg-Victoria Falls routes for Air Zimbabwe, which cancelled its morning flight Saturday from Harare to Johannesburg.
The drama was not over, however, after CAAZ, in apparent retaliation, borrowed the South Africans’ enforcement methods by grounding SAA’s morning service from Harare to Johannesburg.
A CAAZ official, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not cleared to talk to the media, said: “Our instruction is to stop SAA and British Airways aircraft from leaving because they too do not have the permit to operate in Zimbabwe. They can land, but they will not leave with passengers until this matter is sorted.”
Air Zimbabwe said on its official Twitter account that Transport Minister Jorum Gumbo had been engaged to intervene. Talks at ministerial level are already underway between Zimbabwe and South Africa to resolve the impasse.
Diplomatic relations between Zimbabwe and South Africa have never been this strained. First Lady Grace Mugabe remains marooned in South Africa after facing allegations that he assaulted a topless nightclub model he found cavorting with her two sons in a Sandton hotel.
Police Minister Fikile Mbalula told South African media that the country’s border officials were on “full alert”, should she try to leave before the furore is resolved. Zimbabwe is seeking diplomatic immunity for the Zanu PF Women’s League boss, with a decision imminent.
The move to ground the Air Zimbabwe aircraft, a Boeing 767 used by President Robert Mugabe when he flew to South Africa on Wednesday to attend the 37th SADC Heads of State Summit, and Zimbabwe’s swift tit-for-tat response, has added a new strain to relations between the two countries.
The developing crisis will not escape the attentions of Presidents Mugabe and Jacob Zuma, who were joining other heads of state for the two day summit in Pretoria on Saturday.
