fastjet (FN) has announced that its first international flight between Dar es Salaam and Johannesburg, previously scheduled to take place on Friday 27 September 2013, has been temporarily postponed owing to what it claims are "unexpected administrative delays caused by a very late request for additional documentation by the South African Department of Transport".
The airline states that despite having delivered the requested documents, the South African DoT said it will take several days to process them, thus delaying the start of fastjet flights on this international route.
Commenting on the news, fastjet Chief Executive Ed Winter said the postponement was "very disappointing" adding with a sense of pragmatism that administrative delays of this nature are not unusual in the markets in which his airline operates.
"Having complied with all the requests made of us and secured all the necessary licenses and permits in an extremely diligent and timely fashion, fastjet was led to believe that we were fully on-track to launch this route on the 27th September," he said.
fastjet says it is confident it will be operating this service by mid-October but has offered no specific date as yet.
