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Cape Town - Load shedding is not at the heart of luggage woes befalling South African Airways passengers travelling to central Africa, the airline said on Friday.
SAA spokesperson Tlali Tlali said that passengers travelling to mainly, Kinshasa in the DRC, Libreville in Gabon and Douala in Cameroon are to expect luggage delays due to an abnormal amount of luggage needing to be transported to these countries at this time of year.
An earlier IOL report claimed that load shedding was the cause of luggage delays being experienced by the Segatti family, who have been waiting more than a week for luggage to arrive in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Tlali told Traveller24 that the luggage delays were not related to load shedding at all, and that the backlog experienced is due to passengers taking excessively more luggage to their destinations than they normally would.
Traveller24 contacted Acsa to confirm what effects load shedding had had on the airport's facilitation of baggage and if it had affected the operations of other airlines but they were unavailable for comment.
Tlali said that they're experiencing a particular challenge this time of year, with passengers travelling home with many belongings.
Some passengers have reportedly checked in with as much as 13 bags. Passengers with excess luggage pay extra for such bags, but the extra luggage per person also causes the cargo hold of the plane to be filled before all booked passengers are checked in, creating a domino effect and severe backlogs.
Tlali said safety checks cannot be circumvented in order for the backlog to be recovered but that the airline was looking at alternative options, involving its cargo division, as well as deploying bigger aircraft on the affected routes.
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