IS THE END IN SIGHT FOR FLY AFRICA ZIMBABWE?
(Posted 24th November 2015)
Readers will no doubt remember the latest of Fly Africa Zimbabwe’s full mouthed statements the airline uttered since being grounded on the 28th of October, none of which however has come true until now:
‘We have begun work on restarting the airline and are working with the regulators to resume flights on Tuesday 24 November. We will update everyone as soon as we have more information’
As anticipated was no update given, not the day before yesterday, not yesterday and certainly not today, which was to be D-Day for Fly Africa. Hence has another date passed and gone without the airline returning to the skies. This must be bad news, for the airline, for its CEO Hamilton-Manns and his mouth pieces but mostly for those wannabe travelers who had in good faith bought tickets in Zimbabwe to fly with the airline and were left stranded as flight after flight was falling victim to Fly Africa’s lack of having a valid operating permit.
It now appears that the airline no longer even finds it necessary to put updated statements out, as the media section of their main company web page has for days not seen fresh information apart from introducing new refund mechanisms.
It however simply cannot be established how many of the affected passengers have in fact received their money back so far as the airline has refused to answer such legitimate questions and has begun a game of ostriches sticking their head into the sand, maybe hoping that when they come back up for air the problem will have gone away.
There is open speculation now in Harare if the airline will infact make it back into the skies, even if they manage to meet all the multiple conditions of the Zimbabwe Civil Aviation Authority for a return of their Air Operator Certificate. Faced with massive refund bills have usually well informed sources from Southern Africa in fact suggested that the owners of Fly Africa may have lost the taste for a fight. If that is indeed so, the Zimbabwean operation could face a shutdown with refund deadlines possibly moving from a 30 – 40 day time frame ever further into the future, leaving many of those affected only the option to go to court, where no doubt not just the issue of refunds will be looked into but also, what the airline’s managers knew and when they knew it. It is this link between the what and when which may introduce an entirely new dimension into potential law suits.
For now, the 24th has come and gone and Fly Africa remains grounded. Watch this space for further news updates as and when available.
