Fuelling of aircrafts at OR Tambo International Airport resumed after an attempted cable theft caused flights to be delayed, the Airports Company SA said on Sunday (13 October).
"I wish to confirm that normal fuelling operations have resumed. The airport had been operating at significantly reduced fuelling capacity for about six hours," spokesman Unathi Batyashe-Fillis said in a statement.
She said technicians implemented a temporary solution to activate fueling services shortly after 4pm.
Domestic and international flights were affected by the incident. Flights could not take off from around 10am.
Batyashe-Fillis said the attempted theft of cables happened just outside the perimeter of the airport and the police were investigating.
"The incident has inconvenienced our passengers and airline partners," she said.
The SA Airways spokesman Tlali Tlali said his company was notified about the delays and also apologised to customers.
"While the situation is out of the airline's control and has affected all flights across the board, SAA nonetheless would like to apologise to all its customers for the inconvenience caused by this incident," Tlali Tlali said in a statement.
The impact of the interruptions was that many flights were delayed by up to two hours in some cases.
Source: Sapa via I-Net Bridge