Civair : If at first you don't succeed.....!
From Business Report 19 Jan 04
Civair hopes second bid to go global will take off
January 19, 2005
By Audrey D' Angelo
Cape Town - Andy Cluver, chief executive of Civair, which had to call off an attempt to enter the international market with flights from Cape Town and Durban to London-Stansted in December because of cash flow problems, hopes to make a second attempt with a new partner later this year.
He and his auditor, Kobus Nel of Cape Town accounting firm Alliot Nell Anderson, have an appointment to explain what went wrong to the Civil Aviation Authority next week.
Meanwhile, the accounting firm is coming to the end of a long process of repaying fares to would-be passengers who booked from the UK.
Cluver said about R27 million had been paid for 7 000 flights that
never took off. Nel said South African passengers who sent in claims were repaid within 24 hours of verification.
But there were delays in repaying the UK passengers, not only
because the permission of the Reserve Bank had to be obtained to send the money overseas, but some UK passengers dealt with small UK banks that were unknown to local banks.
At least one would-be passenger from the UK, Maurice Power, complained to Business Report about the delay in being repaid R5 000, saying the stronger rand meant he would receive fewer pounds than he had paid last year.
Vanya Lessing, chief executive of the Association of South African Travel Agents, said there had been "a huge loss of confidence" in Civair.
She advised consumers to be cautious when dealing with new travel companies selling fares on line, as Civair had done.