Aviation industry slowly taking to the skies again
SOUTH Africa’s troubled aviation industry is gradually getting back to the skies as the Covid-19 turbulence has eased, while the vaccination drive is being rolled out.
Low-cost carrier kulula.com resumed scheduled flights to Cape Town and Durban from privately owned Lanseria International Airport on Thursday, April 1, for the first time in 12 months.
In terms of the lockdown, kulula. com’s parent company, Comair, was required to stop flying on March 26 last year and resumed its passenger services on December 1 last year at OR Tambo International Airport.
Similar to the reintroduction of its other routes, kulula.com will start with a limited schedule at Lanseria, and flights will be added over the next few months as demand picks up.
The two routes, which have been popular with business and leisure travellers, were reopened just in time for the Easter break and will be a permanent weekly operation.
Kulula.com’s executive head of sales, Brian Kitchin, said they were excited to be back at Lanseria.
“This well-situated gateway to the north-western parts of Gauteng is a perfect fit for kulula.com and aids us to deliver a travel experience that is effortless and convenient,” Kitchin said.
Comair has restructured the airline after it entered business rescue following a loss of R564 million for the first-half of last year due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
The disruption caused by the lockdown did not spare state-owned Airports Company of SA (Acsa) as airline traffic plummeted more than 65 percent last year.
The pandemic plunged Acsa into a R1.47 billion loss for its half-year to the end of September last year.
Lanseria chief executive Rampa Rammopo said they were delighted to welcome back kulula.com and their passengers to the airport.
“As we continue to rebuild air travel in the thrust of the Covid pandemic, Lanseria remains committed to advancing the local economy, tourism service providers, industry and supporting South Africa as the gateway to the continent,” Rammopo said.
Meanwhile, state-owned South African Airways (SAA) does not seem to be anywhere near taking off after 15 months in business rescue.
On the day SAA was expected to announce the completion of its rescue last week, the SAA Pilots’ Association (Saapa) gave the airline 48 hours’ notice of a strike.
SAA pilots, who have been locked out of SAA since December last year, said they would embark on a strike over a dispute about outstanding salary payments and the conditions of their retrenchment.
SAA Pilots Association’s Grant Back said pilots had not been paid their salaries for almost a year.
“They’re using the same old narrative of blaming us and our agreement for every woe at SAA. We could have worked for free for years and SAA would still have lost billions,” Back said.
Two weeks ago, SAA’s business rescuers said they were making every effort to finalise the outstanding items of the rescue process by the end of March.
The rescuers claimed to have transitioned the airline from being an insolvent company to a company that is both solvent and liquid.