Niël Terblanché
For a second consecutive day, Paragon Aviation Services (PAS) provided seamless ground handling service at the Hosea Kutako International Airport (HKIA).
Shortly after Menzies Aviation Namibia were evicted from the premises of the Namibia Airports Company (NAC) on Saturday morning flights by Eurowings Discover and Qatar Airways flights were redirected to other international airports in the southern African region because of insurance issues.
On Sunday, some of the issues were resolved and Qatar Airways flights landed without any disruption or delay.
Eurowings, however, chose not to change their stance because Menzies Aviation Namibia filed yet another urgent application at the High Court of Namibia after being physically evicted from the premises of the Namibia Airports Company by the Deputy Sherrif of the Court over the weekend.
More than 1 000 passengers and 15 flights handled by Paragon Aviation Services went through the HKIA on Sunday and the company did not report any major delays.
An industry expert who didn’t want to be named said, “This was easily one of the busiest days at the airport ever with some flights landing and departing within 10 minutes of each other at times,” a Paragon Aviation Services spokesperson said after the last flight departed from HKIA on Sunday evening.
The Paragon Aviation Services spokesperson said aircraft from Qatar Airways, SA Airlink, South African Airways and FlyNamibia were successfully processed by a strong experienced workforce.
Eurowings Discover flights are still being redirected while a TAAG flight from the HKIA was cancelled by the airline because of technical problems with the specific aircraft.
While Eurowings are not allowing its aircraft to land at the HKIA, the airline did on Sunday charter a special aircraft owned by SA Airlink to pick up passengers stranded in Namibia. Another such charter flight will also land at the HKIA today.
