|
'I can't believe it'
30/04/2008 09:33 - (SA)
Carina van Wyk and Annelene Moses, Beeld
Johannesburg - Nationwide Airlines ceased all its flights on Tuesday without any warning and left thousands of passengers stranded.
Expensive fuel and a decrease in passengers are believed to be of the reasons.
A group of 82 tourists from India who were meant to fly from Johannesburg to George at 12:30, were on the point of boarding when they had to turn back - after they had already booked their luggage and received their boarding passes.
Vernon Bricknell, Nationwide's chief executive said "our cash flow became critical and as a result we decided to voluntarily cease all flights until further notice."
Inconvenience
The Civil Aviation Authority suspended Nationwide's maintenance undertaking licence at the end of November and subsequently the airworthy certificates of all 17 of its airplanes.
The airline soon afterwards contracted out the advanced maintenance of its fleet to Safair.
Its airplanes have since then had to be serviced one by one after which the Civil Aviation Authority had to inspect each airplane before it could be declared airworthy.
Phindi Gwebu, Civil Aviation Authority spokesperson said on Tuesday at the O R Tambo Airport that about 13 of the airplanes had in the meantime been declared airworthy.
A despondent Ashokyerawar Yerawar, 61, said at the same airport: "This is totally inconvenient. They should ban such airlines."
He was sitting barefoot on the ground in front of Nationwide's ticket office at the airport.
"Are you sure? I can't believe it," an unsuspecting Takashi Tsuchiya, 29, from Japan, told a journalist when he heard that all Nationwide's flights had been cancelled.
Takashi would have caught the 18:20 flight to Cape Town.
According to a statement issued by Nationwide, the airline continued with flights in December and January and business gradually increased.
In March and April they were however affected by a 30% increase in fuel prices and a decrease in passengers.
The airline's attempts to ensure investments by a black empowerment consortium were unsuccessful.
Nationwide employees to whom Beeld spoke said they only heard after 12:00 that all flights had been cancelled.
"We are very nervous," one of them said shortly after she heard the news.
Beeld earlier this month reported that increasing crude oil prices were adding millions of rands to airlines' fuel accounts.
According to the International Air Transport Association (Iata), fuel represented about 32% of airlines' operational costs.
Passengers could complete forms on Tuesday to claim back their money.
Staff at ticket offices said they could apparently only expect the refunds back in the next six to eight weeks.
Other airlines with whom Beeld talked had a sharp increase in flight bookings on Tuesday and were working hard to accommodate stranded passengers.
|
News
