HAS FLY AFRICA’S AOC EXPIRED?
(Posted 26th April 2018)
Onlookers are confused and left to wonder … is it FlyAfrica.com or FlyAfricaClub.com?
Checking on one of the websites brings the result:
Welcome to flyafricaclub.com
This Web page is parked for FREE, courtesy of GoDaddy.com.
while the other shows:
This site can’t be reached
flyafrica.com took too long to respond.
- Search Google for flyafrica
ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT
This, by any business standards, is NOT a good thing and for an airline depending on the goodwill of their customers a devastating verdict of incompetence and ignorance.
The company’s Facebook page https://web.facebook.com/flyafrica/ has not seen any activity since the original outfit was exposed here for what they were and what they were doing, again, a damning indictment of a failed communications strategy, if at all Fly Africa 2.0 Reloaded has one.
Earlier today has a well placed and usually reliable source from within the aviation industry passed on information, that the AOC, crucial for any airline to operate legally, has expired, which, if correct, will mean the airline will be grounded – something it was more often than not in the past when instead of flying their planes were on the ground – until such time that the Zimbabwe Civil Aviation Authority has either renewed the Air Operator Certificate or else declined to do so.
Another source sent the following message on condition of strict anonymity two days ago though it only registered today:
‘Hearing that their AOC is expiring this week. So they need to fly and show their capabilities to do so but things are not in place. Service providers on both side of the Limpopo I hear do not want to do business with them. Fuel they are paying in advance and also handling fees. African Charter are tired of their start stops Aircraft lease and are threatening to pull out of the deal.‘
ZCAA itself has in the past come under sustained critique for not acting when flights by Fly Africa were not operated as advertised, leaving passengers stranded and desperately trying to get their prepaid fare back to seek alternate means of transport.
It now remains to be seen if ZCAA will issue a formal statement about the state of affairs of Fly Africa or if by some outside chance the airline itself will respond to the public speculation which is presently ongoing in Zimbabwe and beyond.
One thing is beyond doubt and has been for some time, this airline and its owners and managers bring African aviation once again into the same disrepute just as their former CEO Adrian Hamilton-Manns, whose clouded administration repeatedly threatened to sue this publication but never did, having not a shred of evidence that content published here was deliberately misleading or outright false as was alleged.
Watch this space for breaking and regular aviation news from across Africa.
