The experts mandated for the recovery of the South African airline “Comair” have filed a request for the justice to transform the rescue procedure into a judicial liquidation procedure.
It should also be noted that “business rescue practitioners have announced the failure of the restructuring attempts started since March 5, 2020” within this company.
“We did our best to obtain the financing, but since we were unable to do so, we had no choice but to file the application (for compulsory liquidation). It is an extremely sad day for the company, its employees, its customers and the South African aviation,” said Richard Ferguson, one of the experts.
The Comair company was considered one of the most important South African carriers. On May 31, it announced “the suspension of all its flights and those of its low-cost subsidiary operating under the trade name kulula.com”.
Long before this announcement, Kulula.com “had nevertheless started flying again when the Comair Rescue Consortium (CRC) invested 500 million rand for a 99% stake in the company”.
Richard Ferguson explained following this investment, that “the company was faced with unforeseen headwinds, in this case three other containment measures linked to Covid-19, followed by the setting of South Africa on the red list of certain European countries, in particular the United Kingdom”.
Problems that have worsened with the suspension of the air operator certificate (AOC) of the carrier last March, as well as the considerable rise in fuel prices in recent months.