The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) has lifted its suspension of the approval of Lufthansa Technik Maintenance International (LTMI), a spokesperson from Lufthansa Technik revealed in a statement emailed to media.
“Lufthansa Technik Maintenance International (LTMI) has been informed by SACAA on Sunday [March 27, 2022], that the submitted final resolution proposals for the two outstanding findings were accepted and that LTMI’s suspension of privileges was lifted,” said the spokesperson.
LTMI is a subsidiary of Lufthansa Technik and is one of the Aircraft Maintenance Organizations (AMO) that maintains the fleet of Comair.
The news comes follows an initial statement from the SACAA, released on March 23, 2022, detailing a provisional 24-hour suspension of LTMI’s approval after a four-day audit resulted in four Level 1 findings.
Of the four findings, two were unremedied and LTMI was given 24 hours to resolve the remaining findings from the audit.
As processing the two outstanding issues would exceed the previous deadline of 24 hours, LTMI requested additional time from the SACAA on March 23, 2022 “for the final and thorough settlement of the two outstanding findings,” according to the spokesperson.
They continued: “The findings are not directly related to the technical problems that led to the temporary grounding of the Comair fleet a few days ago [March 12, 2022].”
Following LTMI’s extension request, the SACAA extended the suspension indefinitely on March 23, 2022, which was to remain in force until all issues had been resolved.
The suspension was only applied to LTMI activities in South Africa related to Comair and had no effect on Lufthansa Technik locally or any operation of Lufthansa Group carriers in South Africa.
“In subsequent discussions with Comair, which operates both British Airways (operated by Comair) and kulula.com in Southern Africa, it was agreed that the suspended LTMI services would resume during the course of yesterday evening [March 28, 2022]. This has been done and LTMI is again providing Comair with,” said the spokesperson.
“As a result of the findings, LTMI has optimized its internal quality management processes to avoid similar deficiencies in the future,” they added.