No joy for Skywise

The travel press are reporting, and Skywise founders have confirmed, that the Air Services Licencing Council have rejected a request by Skywise for an extension of their Domestic Air Services Licence. Basically this means that the whole process will have to be restarted if Skywise still wishes to commence operations. The official reason given by the council for the rejection is that Skywise has failed to obtain an AOC.

Industry insiders have suggested that the failure to take off is possibly due to a failure to raise sufficient start-up capital funding.

In an interview, one of the founders, Rodney James, suggested that they are still pursuing alternative avenues and hinted at some form of co-operation. Other projects which may be candidates for a joint venture include Fastjet, Santaco, Safair, and FlyAfrica.

Conditions in the domestic air market in South Africa remain tight, despite Comair posting exceptionally good results, and ordering new aircraft. There have, however been a few small developments in the feeder service segment which could eventually lead to meaningful competition.