High court places Comair under provisional liquidation

The Johannesburg High Court on Tuesday placed Comair, the operator of Kulula.com and British Airways, under provisional liquidation.

This follows an urgent application by the airline’s business rescue practitioners (BRPs) to preserve Comair’s fleet of aircraft, which is valued at about R3.5 billion.

According to the court order, all affected parties had until 26 July 2022 to provide reasons to the high court on why the provisional liquidation order should not be made final.

Comair grounded indefinitely

Last week, Comair was grounded for good after the BRPs could not raise the necessary funding to continue with operations.

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The BRPs, in a notice to creditors, said there was no reasonable prospect the company could be rescued.

In the correspondence seen by The Citizen, the business rescue practitioners said they had no option but to proceed with the liquidation application. 

“We did our utmost to secure the funding, but when we were unable to do so we had no option but to lodge the application. It is an extremely sad day for the company, its employees, its customers and South African aviation.”

The grounding and liquidation of Comair leaves uncertainty for the over 1,200 workers employed by the company.

The company also blamed Covid-19, the red-listing of South Africa by other countries during the pandemic and the temporary suspension of its licence by civil aviation. It added that the high fuel price added to the burden.

Compiled by Thapelo Lekabe. Additional reporting by Hein Kaiser

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