Sure Kamhunga
30 September 2008
Johannesburg — BUDGET airline Comair yesterday abandoned its attempt to sign a management contract with Air Botswana, saying it had failed to agree with the country's government on commercial terms of the contract.
But its deal to buy a 49% stake in Air Malawi was still on the table and negotiations were ongoing, said Avi Bhatt, Comair executive manager in charge of route development .
Meanwhile, Comair was eyeing opportunities to partner with "progressive" African governments that saw value in allowing private sector participation in the airline industry, instead of spending taxpayers' money to subsidise carriers.
Comair is one of the local airlines that has criticised continued state funding for South African Airways, and at the weekend CE of the budget airliner 1time, Rodney James, said newly appointed Public Enterprises Minister Brigitte Mabandla should stop funding the state-owned carrier.
Bhatt said Comair had decades of experience running a profitable business, which it would use to turn around struggling African airlines.
"With our record history of 63 years of uninterrupted operating profit, Comair is well positioned to offer expert operational services to airlines across the continent that are seeking to turn around and streamline their operations in accordance with the successful Comair model," Bhatt said.
"We are seeing many progressive governments in Africa that have seen the demerits of ploughing exorbitant amounts of taxpayers' money into outdated concepts of (most-times unprofitable) 'national carriers', instead of using the same funds on much-needed areas of social and economic development," he said.
He said many opportunities existed for Comair to spread its wings wider over Africa.
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