Airlines’ wings clipped as air services council remains inactive 

Air connectivity in and out of South Africa, particularly into the continent, will be severely hamstrung for the foreseeable future.

This is because air service rights body the International Air Services Council (IASC) is presently without members.

The IASC board’s term ended in March and to date, no new board has been constituted. Current over-border rights holders include most state-owned companies like SA Airways, SA Express and Mango – but private
sector companies are eyeing the routes with interest because they believe they can make them pay.

“Without the IASC, nobody is able to apply, engage or even have any route rights application processed,” says Airlink chief executive Rodger Foster.

This means had the state’s carriers been operating international routes, all other airlines would be excluded from submitting any kind of application while nobody is home at the council.

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“This is counterproductive for the SA economy and certainly not in the national interest to have limited connectivity between our country and several key economic partners,” says Foster.

When an airline is awarded traffic rights to a destination, it usually has about 12 months to implement its services. When it stops operating on a route, there is a three-month window wherein either the airline must recommence flight, or file for mitigation in order to retain its rights.

“Whether or not an airline manages to hold onto traffic rights in such an instance is at the discretion of the council.”

But there is no council.

In Mango’s case, when the airline announced the suspension of flights between Joburg and Zanzibar, it would still enjoy the window of rights retention.

FlySafair, which applied for the rights to also operate to Zanzibar, was recently denied the privilege. This, since the 28 available weekly flights, according to agreements between SA and Tanzania, are already held. The majority of which are held by state-owned airlines SAA, Mango and SA Express.

Airlink, the only carrier operating between Joburg and Dar es Salaam, benefits from a minority set of traffic rights between the countries.

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DA spokesman for public enterprises Ghaleb Cachalia adds that “as if the demise of SAX, the woes of SAA and those inflicted on subsidiaries like Mango is not enough, the failure of the department of transport to appoint a new IASC is compounding the troubles” of the aviation and tourist industry.

“Local tour operators who are keen to sell direct flights to Zanzibar had been engaging with local airlines to find out if an alternative direct service could be introduced, only to find out no traffic rights to Zanzibar were
available.”

Foster says the transport minister is aware of the challenge and has committed to appoint the five council members required by the Act (60 of 1993) by the end of May.

He adds that there is a massive backlog of applications that require a newly formed council’s attention, too.

“I hope that a sense of institutional memory is retained and that the new council acts in the interests of SA, to the letter of the Act and treats all airlines equally so that state-owned carriers never outrank privateers.”

While the pandemic would have softened the playing field somewhat, says Kirby Gordon of Safair, it remains important to SA to retain airlift connectivity.

“During hard lockdown it was impossible for any airline to exercise its rights,” he says.

However, there is an argument that a delinquent airline, such as the liquidating SA Express, should have either surrendered its route rights or, for that matter, have it revoked. This includes traffic rights to Tanzania that remain unutilised, standing in the way of a private operator like FlySafair, which wants to fly to Zanzibar.

– news@citizen.co.za