A power outage affected operations at Cape Town International Airport (CPT) yesterday afternoon (September 30), temporarily bringing the domestic luggage system to a halt.
An agent, who wished to remain anonymous, told eTNW that passengers travelling domestically were unable to hand in luggage at the check-in counter.“They were told to take their luggage downstairs to the section where oversized luggage is handed in for international flights. The queue was incredibly long and there were no staff to assist older passengers with lifting their luggage so that it could be handed to the man signing it in.”
The agent added that passengers on one of the CPT-HLA flights did not receive their luggage on arrival in Johannesburg. “They were told an announcement would be made regarding when they would receive their luggage – no such announcement was made. They were then asked to fill out forms to ensure their luggage was returned to them and there were not enough forms to go around.”
At 14h30 on Monday (October 1), passengers still hadn’t been updated on when their luggage would be returned to them, or why it hadn’t arrived at HLA when it was supposed to, according to the agent. The agent declined to reveal the airline in question.
An Acsa spokesperson for CPT told eTNW that the power outage had affected the airport’s luggage system, which wasn’t one of the systems that could be powered by the generator, adding that the systems were operational once again.
When asked why passengers hadn’t received their luggage, the spokesperson said each airline had a different protocol for dealing with luggage and would need to be contacted directly to resolve any queries.
