Malik not so sky wise

SIR — I read with dismay of Javed Malik’s potential appointment as CEO of the overripe Mango airline.

The aviation industry can be simplified to an eight-letter word — “capacity”. Too much capacity and prices fall, too little and the opposite occurs. Had Malik looked at the domestic constraints on capacity before entering the market with Skywise, he would have found that supply grossly exceeded demand. A postmortem of 10 airlines that no longer exist today would have revealed the simple fact that SA cannot sustain more than two low-cost carriers.

Yet he proceeded to launch Skywise, with full knowledge of the existence of an elephant graveyard. Taking on the big players became more of a personal squabble against the government and Airports Company SA. His supposedly innovative unlimited flying model went against the grain of yield management.

As many predicted, the day of reckoning came. Liquidation, passenger refunds and unpaid liabilities were the order of the day. It would have been prudent for him to have bowed out gracefully. Instead, we were told of a third force, unfair competition, antitransformation and ulterior motives.

Malik has a long way to go to convince me and the general public that he is qualified to run an airline.