Kamuzu International Airport power outage delays flight

Annoyed passengers finally boarded a delayed Malawi Airlines from Lilongwe to Johhansburg via Blantyre which left Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) almost three hours after departure time – 08:10am.

Ministry of Transport and Public Works spokesperson James Chakwera said the airline delayed due to power outage as there was no ESCOM power and standby generators had no fuel.

The Airlines publicist Joseph Josiah has described the delay as a huge inconvenience to passengers.

Chakwera said the airport has been facing persistent long hours of power outages which led to fuel shortage.

“We have no power since 8pm last night and we did not have fuel to power our automatic standby generators, that’s why we have this situation.

“We always have enough fuel but we are frequently facing power cuts hence using more fuel…but we are working to normalise the situation” said Chakwera.

He said their generators use up to 58 litres of diseal per hour which means for the 12 hour black out that the airport has experienced since last night – they would have used about 696 litres of fuel.

The passengers checked in manually due to lack of power.
Chakwera said the plane could not depart because the ground radio communication system which connects to pilots airborne before and due to landing were off because of the power outage.