Kamogelo Olaitan
Comair which operates Kulula.com and British Airways will be liquidated after its business rescue practitioners (BRPs) failed to raise enough funds to continue operating.
The BRPs had tasked the current owner Comair Rescue Consortium (CRC) to come up with a practical plan for continued operations by 31 May this year and when they couldn’t the BRPs suspended all Comair’s flights indefinitely on 1 June.
In a statement on Thursday, one of the company’s BRPs, Richard Ferguson, said they did their best to secure the funding.
He said when they couldn’t get funding they lodged the application to convert business rescue proceedings into liquidation proceedings.
“It is an extremely sad day for the company, its employees, its customers and SA aviation,” Ferguson said.
Comair has been in business rescue for the past two years and according to News 24 the CRC invested R500 million for a 99% share of the equity in the company at the time.
The airline which had been operating successfully since the late 1940s accounted for 40% of South Africa’s domestic flights.
In March this year, the SA Civil Aviation Authority suspended Comair flights for five days after a series of incidents including issues with the landing gear indicator on one of the flights.
The company’s 1,200 employees and customers who are owed refunds from bookings will now become creditors of the company.
Image source@ SimpleFlying
