daniel chigunweJOHANNESBURG. – FlySAFAIR, the low-cost South African airline which, among other destinations, flies daily between Harare and Johannsburg, has appealed for exemption to the Minister for Transport Barbara Creecy as it is hemmed in by guilty verdicts which could lead to the possibility of it being barred from the airspace in South Africa.
The airline also flies into Victoria Falls.
It has been accused of contravening the foreign ownership threshold in the domestic and international airspaces. FlySAFAIR is awaiting sanctions from both the Domestic Air Services Licensing Council (DASLC) and the International Air Services Licensing Council (IASLC), whose considerations may include processes to recoup the losses by the country from the airline’s prohibited practice over the years. FlySAFAIR prides itself as the world’s best on-time low-cost airline.
South African aviation analyst Phuthego Mojapele said the findings by the domestic council were more serious than that of their international counterparts because there was a strict 25 percent threshold the airline misrepresented, as the dispute revolves around the requirement that 75 percent of the voting rights of air services licensees (airlines) must be South African residents, and that the licensee must be in effective control of the airline.
Analysts and legal experts tore into its argument that the interpretation of the Air Services Licensing Act renders almost all domestic airlines non-compliant and puts their operations at risk because the ultimate beneficiary of any commercial entity is natural persons.
The airline describes the council’s interpretation of the act as “highly unique and irregular in the context of global aviation, with almost no examples of similar legislation existing in other countries around the world.”
FlySAFAIR Chief Marketing Officer Kirby Gordon confirmed the airline had appealed for Creecy’s intervention by giving them exemption from the relevant legal provisions until its court application for a declaratory order and its court review of the council’s finding of non-compliance have been finalised.
Creecy’s spokesperson, Collen Msibi, confirmed receipt of the letter on Tuesday.
“The request is currently being considered by the departmental legal services, taking into account the regulatory environment,” he stated.
Mojapele said the sanction on the airline would likely be severe as the matter of its domestic ownership had been discussed since 2022 without it making the necessary changes to its structure.
“The Qatar and Airlink deal, for example, was tailored to meet the 25 percent requirement. Qatar could have taken even up to 40 percent, but they adhered to the rules. The benefit and dividends the airline has derived from 2022 when the matter was flagged are quite huge, taking into account that it has about 60 percent of the market share,” Mojapele said.
He said appealing to the Minister only applied if the conditions the airline had been established in had changed or if it were aggrieved that rules were not applied consistently in its case.
“There is a high risk or possibility of the airline being taken to task and perhaps being grounded; we might see that,” Mojapele said.
An aviation law practitioner said the endowment of ownership to a trust did not absolve its owners or shareholders from compliance with local laws.
“What is most important is who is behind the company in question because companies by their nature do not derive financial benefit from their operations; the company does not get rich, but the people behind it do,” they said. – IOL/H-Metro Reporter
