Liquidation of Comair Limited

If five years ago someone had told me that Comair with its two airlines British Airways and kulula.com would file for bankruptcy in June 2022, I would have said ‘you must be smoking your socks’. At that time the airline was managed by Erik Venter who in my opinion was an excellent CEO. Also, all those years ago, when speaking to Erik, I remarked that it would not be wise for Comair to continue with its lawsuit against South African Airways (SAA), because even if they won the legal battle, Comair would never see the money. At that time Erik agreed with me, but he was overruled by his board and the well documented lawsuit went ahead with a resounding win for Comair as the outcome. Erik subsequently resigned his position and some months later when I met up with him again, he reminded me of that conservation. The fact is that for decades SAA has been ‘propped up’ by massive cash bailouts from the state and right at the time of the COVID pandemic the airline went into business rescue, meaning that Comair did not receive the cash that had been awarded by the court. Unfortunately, the decision by Comair’s board led to what appears to have been victimisation by the regulator and this led to the grounding of the airline and its appointed maintenance organisation, Lufthansa Technique earlier this year. Both events had a devastating effect on the cash flow of the airline and like me, many disappointed customers were left holding air tickets that would never be flown.

In what appears to have been a series of disappointing management bungles, Comair never emerged out of ‘business rescue’ whilst the notorious ‘stop / start’ of the airline sealed it fate. Coupled with very poor on time performance meant that Comair’s two airline brands that in some ways competed with each other this was always going to be a problem. On 31 May 2022 business operations were suspended and on 9 June the business rescue practitioners announced that there was no reasonable prospect of rescue and that the company would be placed into liquidation.

Another bizarre twist to the Comair saga also happened many years ago when FlySafair wanted to start up operations. FlySafair was established in August 2013 and was granted approval by the South African Air Service Licensing Council to launch operations with

ten daily services between Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport and Cape Town International Airport. The airline had plans to begin operations in October 2013. However, on 8 October 2013, the High Court of South Africa granted an interim court order preventing the airline from starting operations, following an application by Comair in particular on the basis that it did not meet the legal requirement of 75% local ownership. Substantial restructuring of ownership took place and FlySafair’s inaugural flight eventually took place on 16 October 2014 a year later.

As Comair’s ashes have been scattered, FlySafair has grown its fleet by snapping up Boeing 737-800s from leasing companies as well as Mango airlines and several of kulula. com’s fleet that have been re-branded into FlySafair’s colours. The airline plans to add ten new routes across sub-Saharan Africa to take advantage of a gap in the market left by the collapse of Comair. According to a statement by the airline it will fly to capital cities such as Nairobi, Lusaka and Maputo alongside holiday destinations including Victoria Falls and Zanzibar. The company will add another five Boeing 737-800s to its fleet early in 2023 to bring the total number up to 28 airliners. “The market has lost about 9,000 seats per week,” Kirby Gordon, chief marketing officer at FlySafair, said in the statement. Adding new planes “will help to plug this gap.”

Unseasonal weather in South Africa

For most of this year very high rainfall and unseasonal thunderstorms have effectively caused several weekend aviation events to be cancelled or delayed. Known as ‘cut-off low pressure systems’ are associated with widespread instability in the atmosphere, which can promote periods of prolonged rainfall. Showers and thundershowers over extended parts of the country with associated cold daytime temperatures and windy conditions spread across the interior of the country, which is not common for the winter period. The central part of South Africa usually has stable dry conditions with moderate daytime temperatures and cold nights, ideal for staging aviation events.

At last, the Covid-19 pandemic appears to be over

In an announcement to the nation, the president declared that the pandemic had been contained and we no longer have to wear face masks at any time. As we all know the pandemic had a devastating effect on business and aviation in particular. However, from African Pilot’s perspective, the pandemic changed the method of publishing substantially to become a far more interactive magazine without the associated costs of printing and distribution. I sincerely believe that African Pilot would have stopped printing in the future anyway, Covid just made this all that much faster.

Our team very quickly adapted to the new process of digital publishing by purchasing the correct digital publishing platform, which has systematically grown our audience many times over since the magazine is FREE to the entire world. Whilst several other magazines in South Africa have also adopted the digital process, all of them have retained the typical ‘print format’ where the text cannot be read on a laptop computer, never mind a cell phone.

From an international perspective, it has been most encouraging to watch African Pilot’s subscriber audience continue to grow in leaps and bounds. This has also elevated African Pilot and APAnews to be awarded the fourth best English language aviation magazine in the world. The others within the top ten are from the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

As you are reading this editorial, around one hundred and thirty South Africans are preparing to travel to the greatest aviation celebration on earth, EAA AirVenture, Oshkosh. African Pilot will be well represented at Oshkosh this year as Christine and I prepare ourselves for the long-haul flights to Amsterdam and onto Chicago to arrive a few days earlier at ‘Camp Plakkerfontein’ than the larger group of South Africans. African Pilot will be providing several reports form AirVenture as we look at many of the world’s newest developments in aviation.

Until next month, please let us hope for more stable weather and numerous aviation events.