DECEMBER 2024

This month's column closes off 2024. The year has flown by quickly and by the time you are reading this column you will already be well through the first month of the New Year!

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BEFITTING DECEMBER'S STATUS as a holiday month where South Africans traditionally take time off and companies close their doors for the Christmas and New Year period, we have very few aircraft mentioned in this month's updates.

These updates are kindly supplied by the SACAA on a monthly basis for which we are very grateful!

Just seven aircraft have been registered this month, while three depart our shores.

Airlink has registered another one of their four Embraer 175s, ZS-YBE (17000343) but these aircraft seem to be taking longer to enter service than expected. They were reportedly to have started commercial services with these jets in the last half of 2024, replacing their elderly Embraer 170s. But by early January they had not yet entered service.

The Pilatus PC-12 family continues to be a popular choice for aircraft owners in southern Africa with yet another new PC-12NGX, ZS-JHG (2433), being registered. This aircraft arrived on delivery to Cape Town on 13 January having ferried from Switzerland via Heraklion, Luxor, Djibouti, Entebbe and Victoria Falls.

The last fixed wing this month is a Scheibe Flugzeugbau SF28A touring motorized glider.

This is a type we don't see too often in this column!

December only saw a single helicopter being registered: an Airbus Helicopters (formerly Eurocopter) EC120B is added, taking up the registration ZT-HKL. This 2016 built helicopter was operated by the US Department of Agriculture as N250WH from its delivery till its sale and export to South Africa in the latter part of 2024.

It is not known who the new owners are as this information is regrettably not supplied by the SACAA due to the POPI Act restrictions.