The South African Civil Aviation Authority has given Comair until Sunday morning to meet the requirements of the regulator or face indefinite suspension. The authority has suspended the Air Operator Certificate of Comair with its subsidiary Kulula.com and British Airways.
Comair regrets that our flights have been suspended by the CAA for 24 hours. This will affect both British Airways (operated by Comair) as well as https://t.co/cK3xAJazYb.
— kulula (@kulula) March 12, 2022
The authority says this follows investigations that suggest that there are safety risks at the operator.
It goes on to say that in the last month, Comair operations experienced issues ranging from engine failure to engine and landing gear malfunctions. Comair risks indefinite suspension if it fails to meet the requirements.
Civil Aviation Authority of South Africa says in the interest of safety it visited the operator to investigate and determine if the operator is in compliance with applicable civil aviation regulations.
It says due to the failure of the operator to produce satisfactory evidence to the regulator led to the decision to impose a precautionary suspension of the operations in order to give the operator an opportunity to demonstrate that their systems are able to prevent and avert safety hazards.
In October 2019, SAA and Comair came under the spotlight following the grounding of planes: