N2 hole inspires Grahamstown to PE flights
2012-10-23 13:04
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Cape Town - Regular commuters between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth have been dealt an inconvenient hand, as the past weekend's heavy rains washed away part of the N2, leaving a 50m-deep and 25m-wide hole in the road outside Pumba Nature Reserve.
While many have grudgingly accepted the fate of the time-consuming detour along the N10 via Cookhouse, one Grahamstown local has seen it as an ideal opportunity to offer on-demand flights between the two cities.
Andrew de Jager decided to offer the services of his Cessna 210 after having to make use of the detour himself over the weekend and finding it "a pain." The offer was originally circulated on the GPN network then made its way onto Facebook, leading to a flood of desperate requests ever since.
The flights between Grahamstown airport and Port Elizabeth International take 20 minutes and cost R500 per person for a minimum of two people and a maximum of five. There is no set flight schedule, and Andrew runs his business on demand. "I've done two flights today and three are booked for tomorrow, so it just depends really," he said.
Captain John Fobian, Disaster Management Officer at the SAPS in the Eastern Cape, told the Cape Times that the road could take up to three months to rebuild and would probably only be completed by 2013.
In the meantime Andrew will be juggling his regular job and his new endeavour to offer commuters a quick and convenient alternative to the N10 detour. Andrew is a commercial pilot who operates on a charter license 135.
