Aerial view of JIA | File photo

Plans are under way to dismantle old planes that are no longer in service at the airport, the Director of Juba International Airport has said.

The out-of-service planes will be discarded as scrap metals, Kur Kuol warned.

In July, the Civil Aviation Authority urged companies that had abandoned their planes at the airport to remove them within three weeks or risk being confiscated.

At least 10 planes remain parked at the airport for the last several years.

The South Sudan Civil Aviation Authority said these are no longer planes but “scraps” that must be removed.

Airline companies were also to pay $50 per day as parking fee.

However, the chairman of South Sudan Aviation Association, Ayii Duang who owns the South Supreme Airline, protested the directive, saying they “can’t park aircrafts at their homes”.

Speaking to Eye Radio on Friday, the Director of Juba International Airport, Kur Kuol, insists that old planes that continue to occupy the airport space for nothing will be destroyed.

“We will chop them…according to the policies of the civil aviation headquarters,” he said.

But Ayii instead accused the Civil Aviation Authority of failing to build a hangar at the Juba International Airport.

“The decision of civil aviation about our planes is not logical, because the planes are not parked at home or house but at airports,” protested Ayii Duang.

A hanger is a large structure at an airport where aircraft can be stored and maintained.