Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company brings in Swiss experts for maintenance work

CAPE TOWN - The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company says its flown in a team of engineers from Switzerland to make sure the cableway gets the best maintenance possible.

Cape Town's iconic cableway has been shut down for seven weeks of maintenance and is set to reopen again in early September. 

The cableway company's technical executive, Andries de Vries, said the Swiss engineers, from the Doppelmayr-Garaventa Group, were the original equipment manufacturers who installed the cableway in 1997.

"They've also got all the specialised tools to do cablework because in South Africa, other than the mines, we don't really have this level of cableway." 

De Vries said operations were on track to finish the maintenance work by early September.

"The next two-and-a-half weeks is going to be... time will tell... this is crunch time, but so far we've clawed back the time we lost in the beginning and we're on schedule."     

Hikers have been warned to avoid trails close to the cableway while maintenance is underway.