Page 74 - World Airnews September 2020 Edition

FEATURE
FEATURE

Cape Town the engine was wrecked by a bird. Talking about the need to be associated with a mainline carrier

Rodger paid tribute to the flight deck crews for getting the like Fly Safair, Rodger said it was a pity the competition commis-
aircraft and passengers back on the ground safely despite mas- sion ruled against but he feels keen to do something about it as
sive damage. this will assist growth.
He spoke about huge Cape Town developments with flights On the issue of the lack of airport infrastructure, Rodger said he

from Cape Town to Windhoek, Upington, Kimberley, Vic has been having a hard time with expansion as lights are not work-

Falls, Maun, Nelspruit, Skukuza East London, Port Elizabeth ing at times, fencing is not right and so on.
and George. Bear in mind that Airlink designed and pioneered the implemen-

The commissioning of a dedicated maintenance base in Cape tation of the GNSS approach into for example Pietermaritzburg this

Town base is under way. cutting bad weather diversions and making the route a lot more

viable. In fact he tells me that the very first GNSS approach was
NEW MAINTENANCE installed by Airlink at Maseru.
At the hanger at the east side of OR Tambo, this is an On the Margate – Johannesburg he said this was due to start in

amazing facility. It handles everything to do with the strip July which would be fantastic news for South Coast residents. The

down of aircraft and Capt Tammy kindly showed me around aircraft route starter will be the ever dependable JS41, 29 seater
the entire facility. I even climbed the docking station where twin turboprop. And the Johannesburg-Newcastle route was due
an RJ 85 was being stripped down. The old hanger on the to commence shortly thereafter.

Western side in the SA Technical premises handles line On the new routes from Cape Town – exciting

maintenance. developments will be taking place here. Rodger
There was also a stripped down JS 41 and ERJ 140. said the St Helena route is operating well with To page 74

Beautiful architecture in the new

facility including this spiral staircase
with Airlinks E190 adorning it

The entrance to the new Airlink
training centre of excellence

A WORLD CLASS TRAINING

FACILITY

World Airnews correspondent Mike Wright got the opportunity to visit
the Airlink training facility in Johannesburg by Airlink captain Tammy King
executive manager flight operations and standards. While he was there he

also had a chance to chat with the CEO Rodger Foster. This is his interview.

We then spoke about the SA Express situation and the impact

its grounding has had on Airlink operations which have been
n the right hand seat was CEO Rodger Foster’s daughter Mikae- stretched to the limits.

Ila which was wonderful since I have known the CEO for over 50 Airlink has been asked to assist and still are assisting to this day.

years. I was privileged to be in the jump seat. The aircraft for the The CEO was told initially that assistance would be required for a

few days. Now back in to operation they are deploying to Airlink

flight up from Pietermaritzburg was ZS YAY - the company’s state routes line JHB Umtata where margins are already squeezed and
of the art new E190 but more about that and the ERJ 135 (ZS SNZ) on a route that battles to get 100 customers per day there really

flight back later. isn’t room in his view for a 50-seater SA CRJ and three ERJ 135s
First up Rodger and I discussed the state of the art training facil- from Airlink.

ity and simulator. Both facilities are truly world class and finished “All that will happen, in my personal view, is that this will de-

off in Airlinks beautiful grey colour scheme. stroy value, “ says Roger.

Everything including the magnificent architecture is just so well Margins are at an estimated 4% currently and he highlighted

put together. Incorporated into the facility are numerous lecture issues affecting the airline. These include two recent bird strikes. In

rooms and board rooms. the one case the birds punctured the fuselage and in the other, in
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