Did Comair know it was going to suspend flights while selling discounted tickets?

The National Consumer Commission says there are no facts to show that Comair contravened the Consumer Protection Act by selling tickets for a service it did not intend to render and therefore it will not investigate the matter.

Comair suddenly suspended flights by British Airways and Kulula on Tuesday night, citing a lack of funds to keep flying. However, consumers have been asking if this was the case, why was Kulula still selling tickets at special prices during the day on Tuesday.

The National Consumer Commission (NCC) said in response to questions from The Citizen that it is not known if Comair kept selling tickets while knowing that they would not be able to operate their flights from 1 June 2022.

“Comair, through its media statement, said they will refund consumers in cash refund or with travel bank credit, putting consumers at the state they were in before transacting with Comair. There are no facts as yet pointing to the contravention of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA).”

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Consumer Protection Act

According to section 47, that deals with over-selling and over-booking, a supplier must not accept payment for any goods or services if the supplier has no reasonable basis to assert an intention to supply those goods or provide those services.

The section goes on to say that suppliers who commit to or accept a reservation and fails to honour it, must refund the amount with interest at the prescribed rate from the date on which the amount was paid until the date of reimbursement and compensate the consumer for costs directly incidental to the supplier’s breach of the contract unless it was due to circumstances beyond the control of the supplier or if the supplier took reasonable steps to inform the consumer.

Subsection 6 of section 47 also states that “a shortage of stock or capacity is not due to circumstances beyond the supplier’s control if the shortage results partially, completely, directly or indirectly from a failure on the part of the supplier to adequately and diligently carry out any ordinary or routine matter pertaining to the supplier’s business”.

Did Comair know it would suspend flights?

The question remains whether Comair knew it was going to suspend flights within a few hours while still selling tickets.

The NCC spokesperson added that, since Comair is still under business rescue, there is an automatic moratorium on all legal action against the supplier and therefore any judgment that would relate to the payment of a fine will be a futile exercise.

“At this stage, the NCC would not investigate,” she said.

Now the question would be whether companies in business rescue can take money from consumers and not deliver the goods and services – and get away with it?

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Competition Commission watching other airlines for gouging

Meanwhile, the Competition Commission says since the decision to suspend all British Airways and Kulula flights with immediate effect, capacity in the domestic air travel and competition will be significantly reduced.

Concerned about the impact on air ticket prices the Competition Commission met separately with the leadership of major airlines, Lyft, FlySafair, Airlink and South African Airways (SAA) on Wednesday to prevent any possible price gouging.

It also wanted to understand how capacity could be brought to the market to mitigate the impact of Comair’s decision.

The commission spokesperson said on Wednesday afternoon that it was encouraged by the positive response of all the airlines in this respect as they acknowledged the need to bring in more capacity into the market.

They also committed not to change their pricing methodologies to exploit the situation. “All parties further acknowledged the challenges posed by the rising fuel prices which will further put pressure on the cost of air travel. The Commission will monitor the situation.”