FROM BAD TO WORSE FOR FLY AFRICA NAMIBIA AS ERSTWHILE PARTNER TAKES OUT LARGE COMMERCIAL WASHING HIS HANDS OF THE MESS
(Posted 19th December 2015)
The Revolution has eaten its child as the latest development involving FlyAfrica in Namibia, not just Zimbabwe, amply demonstrates.
It is clear that there is now very bad blood between Nomad Aviation, the company which Fly Africa used as a springboard into the Namibian aviation market.
Nomad Aviation’s management has taken out a large commercial advert in The Namibian of 16th of December, making it categorically clear that they did not sell tickets on account of FlyAfrica and that ticket sales were exclusively conducted by FlyAfrica. Therefore, the advert suggests, all enquiries about refunds should be directed to that airline. Probably cognizant of the fact that elsewhere, especially in Zimbabwe, hundreds if not thousands were queueing to get their refunds, most without success it would appear, did Nomad give the email contacts of the FlyAfrica managers behind the mess, including their CEO Adrian Hamilton-Manns, who since the outbreak of the crisis on the 28th of October has been literally hiding in a Wagenburg, refusing to answer legitimate questions posed to him from this correspondent and apart from inconsequential utterances disguised as company statements not offered any substantive comment if those who paid for tickets would ever get their money back.
(FlyAfrica still advertises flights from Windhoek to South Africa on their website as of 12.25 hrs East African Time on the 19th of December 2015, when in fact the Director of the DCA in Namibia has confirmed that the airline has no valid Air Operator Certificate, rendering them unable to actually operate any flights)
He neither answered the question if he was running a Ponzi scheme, a question now repeated here, or if he would take responsibility for the mess and resign from the airline, already having become an almost untouchable pariah in the industry with little if any prospect of ever bagging a similar job again.
The advert by Nomad Aviation is shown below for all to see and was placed by, or so investigations revealed, a Mr. Clifford Strydom, CEO of Nomad Aviation t/a Fly Africa Namibia.
Like in Zimbabwe have duped passengers now started to come together to take legal advice and see to what extent Fly Africa can be sued, for one to get their money back and secondly to establish if any laws have been broken by Fly Africa when taking their money – with focus on actual traffic rights, AOC still being in place or having already been withdrawn when ticket sales were made.
In aviation terms this constitutes such adverse conditions that flying no longer seems a sensible option but there is no indication as yet that Fly Africa’s financial backers are ready to cut their losses and damage to their reputation and throw in the towel or try hang in and against the odds return to what has become a decidedly hostile skies, in Zimbabwe and in Namibia. As usual, look no further for news updates about this never ending story of an airline which now more than ever before seems doomed to fail.
Readers may also want to check out related media articles via
http://sbeta.iol.co.za/dailynews/2.1443/flyafrica-not-worth-the-gamble-1956497
and
http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-79188.html
3 Responses
AHM turned on us (Zim partners) and then led a very humiliating and publicly defamatory character assassination campaign against us in order to push us out and cover up the very reason we surrendered the Zim AOC to begin with. We didn’t steal any monies nor did we have access to management accounts and had been asking AHM why he wanted us out now that we had found out that the operation was accumulating debts which weren’t there before Matipedza Karase left FlyAfrica in March 2015. Excuses and false hopes were to be the norm in answering our requests for board meetings and management accounts for the next few months until enough was enough. Now the truth has come out and the cover up rug has been pulled up from under him and the truth of the matter revealed. We had a good thing going or atleast we thought we did. Thank you to the blogger for being thorough in your research of what’s really going on. I feel terrible that the passengers who had come to enjoy what we had built and we were hoping to spread in Africa, are now being inconvenienced and privy to AHM’s ignorance to their plights and criminality.
Thank you for your comments which add to the picture my past reporting since the 28th of October has painted of the company. If I was lied to on the 28th when I asked if they are flying, I am sure a lot of unsuspecting travelers were lied to as well, parted with their money and got only excuses in return.
From the start it was clear that the parent company was playing a foul game with the local shareholders and I do hope that SADC has a mechanism to extradite individuals to stand trial should the authorities in Zimbabwe go ahead and press criminal charges. I will continue to monitor the situation closely until a conclusion, one way or another has been reached. If a lesson is to be learned here for airline executives, do not mess with or lie to the media!
Thanks for reading my blog.
W.