South African Airways (SAA) announced on Friday that the continued closure of the main runway at the Chileka International Airport at Blantyre, Malawi, had forced it to make alternative flight arrangements for passengers travelling between Johannesburg and Blantyre. Chileka’s main runway has been closed for upgrade and maintenance work since late April.

The airport authorities in Malawi recently informed SAA that this work would take significantly longer than originally hoped. The main runway would have to stay closed until October 31. Chileka’s secondary, or auxiliary, runway remains open and operational, but SAA aircraft cannot use it.

“SAA customers will therefore travel between Johannesburg and Lilongwe [Malawi] on SAA operated aircraft and further travel between Lilongwe and Blantyre on Ethiopian Airlines, for the period 31 August 2019 until 31 October 2019,” explained SAA spokesperson Tlali Tlali. “This is an interim travel plan intended to avoid any service disruptions.”

Ethiopian and SAA are partner airlines and have an interline agreement that allows seamless customer transfers between them. SAA flies between Johannesburg and Lilongwe every day, using Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft, with business and economy class seats. SAA did not state what aircraft Ethiopian would use on the Lilongwe/Blantyre sector.

Passengers who have been issued tickets for Johannesburg-Blantyre flights will be rebooked on the closest available Johannesburg-Lilongwe flights, in the same class, with no change fees being charged. Those passengers who have not yet been issued tickets will be booked on the next available Johannesburg-Lilongwe flight.

“We apologise to our valued customers for any inconvenience caused by these operational changes,” he said. “We will continue to look for ways of minimising the impact of operational changes to enable us to offer more travel convenience for customers.”