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JOHANNESBURG, Oct 23 (Reuters) - South African Airways (SAA)
and Comair began returning grounded planes to service
on Wednesday a day after safety regulators flagged maintenance
problems.
Flights were departing Johannesburg's OR Tambo airport as
normal on Wednesday morning, a passenger service representative
for Airports Company South Africa said.
Comair said it expected no disturbances on Wednesday, after
at least eight of its domestic flights were disrupted on
Tuesday.
SAA, which had 25 aircraft affected by the regulators'
safety audit, declined to comment.
The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) said on
Tuesday that it had found faults during an inspection at SAA
Technical.
It issued a prohibition order until the faults had been
fixed but the authority refused to disclose the nature of the
problems.
SACAA said it had accepted a corrective action plan from
SAA's maintenance unit and that the decision by SAA and Comair
to "self-ground" some aircraft on Tuesday was a precautionary
measure.
SAA Technical maintains aircraft for SAA, its subsidiary
Mango Airlines and British Airways franchise partner Comair,
which also operates under the kulula.com brand.
SAA cancelled four domestic flights on Tuesday, combining
services and deploying bigger aircraft to accommodate affected
passengers.
SAA has not made an annual profit since 2011 and is
dependent on government bailouts for its survival.
(Reporting by Alexander Winning; editing by Jason Neely)
