No more food or drink on SA domestic flights

There will be no more munchies on domestic flights in SA.

Passengers will be forbidden from eating on flights when travelling around the country, according to the regulations gazetted by the government and published yesterday.

FlySafair chief marketing officer Kirby Gordon said the new regulations gazetted by transport minister Fikile Mbalula explicitly forbade domestic air operators from providing any catering on board aircraft.

It further stated that passengers on board domestic flights may not eat or drink aboard the aircraft with the exception of bottled water.

“Air travel and the spread of the coronavirus have been totally conflated in our minds, but what we forget is that people weren’t necessarily getting ill on aircraft; rather it’s the act of infected folks travelling from one community to another that perpetuated the spread of the disease,” he said.

Gordon said several studies confirmed that the sophisticated air filtration and management systems within modern airline cabins made them safer environments than most, so much so that airlines around the world were permitted to fill their aircraft up without leaving open seats.

“We’ve been operating with strict protocols in place since June 15 and of all departments in our business, the incidence of Covid-19 among our cabin crew is actually very low,” Gordon said.

He said this was another revenue stream for their business which was needed during the tough times, but that not offering catering was the right thing to do.