Page 51 - World Airnews Magazine December 2020

NEWS DIGITAL

REGIONAL AIRLINE

SAYS IT’S ‘NOW OR

NEVER’

labour might put a spanner in the works.
Airlink, a regional airline like CemAir, is now also flying the main
While airlines worldwide fight for their survival in the routes. It has changed its colours and announced new routes to
wake of Covid-19, regional airline CemAir is increasing operations Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Lubumbashi in the Democratic
by 50%. Republic of Congo.
It was the first local airline to take to the skies after the hard Singh says the domestic market is recovering, although many
lockdown ended, entering the mainstream domestic market corporates are still to change policy to allow the resumption of
with almost daily flights between Johannesburg, Cape Town and business travel.
Durban. FlySafair, according to its marketing manager Kirby Gordon,
CemAir is also buying three Airbus A319 aircraft and has applied expects passenger numbers in December to be at only 57% of the
for approvals for flights to six more destinations in Africa. previous December. FlySafair is however operating at the same
Before Covid-19 CemAir provided charter flights and leases to level as in November 2019 and even expects a bit of growth in
other airlines as well as scheduled flights to smaller, municipal December.
airports in South Africa and destinations in southern Africa.
DOMESTIC OPERATORS
GOOD TIME TO BUY AIRCRAFT By January there will be seven operators in the domestic market,
The airline, owned by pilot Miles van der Molen, owns a fleet of 34 namely CemAir, Airlink, FlySafair, Mango, British Airways Comair
aircraft, but it is “now or never” in terms of growth, says marketing and kulula.com, as well as newcomer Lift.
manager Shaniel Singh. Of these only CemAir and Airlink offer full service.
With the industry in crisis there is an oversupply of aircraft and Flight Centre MD Andrew Stark says the increase in airlines will
as a result prices have dropped significantly. stimulate demand and drive ticket prices down.
Singh says CemAir became “the king of repatriation flights” Transport economist Joachim Vermooten says it is critical for
during the hard lockdown. airlines to use the right aircraft for each route. The bigger the
“We brought 8 000 South Africans home from 23 countries,” he aircraft, the bigger the risk, he says. “When you fail to fill up a large
says. aircraft, you lose money very fast,” he says.
This was no simple task. The operator could only apply for the Airlink’s E190 Embraer aircraft with two seats on each side of
required permits once there were enough passengers, but the the aisle works better for social distancing than aircraft with three
passengers wanted to know when the flight would depart before seats on each side, he says.
making their booking. Vermooten says domestic load factors are currently at only 26%
compared to a year ago. He expects this to increase to 30% next
INDUSTRY SHAKE-UP year and 45% in 2022.
He says managing supply and demand is very challenging in the
Singh says the domestic air travel market has changed dramatically current market and most airlines won’t be able to utilise their full
due to the impact of Covid-19. fleet as they did before the pandemic hit.
Airlink and FlySafair started flying shortly after CemAir, while He cautions that the market might be fully served when SAA
SAA and Comair’s two brands – British Airways and kulula.com – eventually resumes flying. That might necessitate further subsidies
have not yet returned to the sky. Comair has reopened bookings for the national carrier, to the detriment of its competitors. Q
and hopes to resume flights on December 1, but a court battle with
Article courtesy: https://www.moneyweb.co.za/
World Airnews | December Extra 2020
— 4—