Far ahead of the rest

The tablets containing the Ten Commandments that Moses picked up on Mt Sinai were pretty generalist in tone, but if he had been issued with another to cover the eternal truths of investment, it would have contained something along the lines of “Thou shalt not invest in airlines, for verily shall they smite thine balance sheet asunder”.

Any fool knows that airlines are terrible investments, with their thunderous cost base and paper-thin margins, and their tendency to keel over at any fluctuation of the oil price or the exchange rate.

And then there’s Comair, which appears to take considerable pleasure in poking the eye of received wisdom and tweaking the nose of Investment for Dummies. Old Rudyard himself could have been thinking of Comair versus the rest of the domestic aviation business when he came up with his routine “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs”, so marked is the difference in performance between Comair and the Flagging Springbok.

Comair has notched up a record first-half performance despite an economy showing the sort of vital signs normally only spotted in a mortuary. It continues to invest in upgrading its fleet to enhance operational efficiencies, and in technology solutions to boost performance and customer service. It is growing its non-airline revenue in travel, flight training, catering and airport lounges, and it is looking forward to a fat damages cheque from SA Airways if a high court judgment is upheld on appeal. Conditions may be tough, but Comair is an impressive operation.

Any fool knows that airlines are terrible investments