Despair over slow issuance of charter permits

The SA aviation authority has just won SA another global record – for the slowest issuance of a charter permit in the world, by a long way. The discovery of this World No 1 was the result of a phone call from a frustrated SA charter service provider who complained to FTW about the fact that “it now takes 21 days to apply for a permit” from the SA Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). A timespan, he added, “which defeats the whole object of quick turnaround”. The FTW global comparative time study was carried out at the behest of Maria Du Preez, business development director of Bidvest Panalpina Logistics. She quizzed the company’s air charter fundis in Belgium, and they came up with the following averages for foreign operator permits. “For Korea/Japan/China it takes 10 days. Elsewhere usually three to five days. But some are flexible and tolerate a letter of urgency – and this can speed up the process to 24 hours. “21 days! This is the longest period known in the market.” But then Du Preez came up with the good news. “We have heard from the local guys,” she told FTW, “that the time has been reduced to between seven and nine days over the past two weeks.”