Deanw...... not to be pedantic but Sun Air (and I assume you refer to one that had its head office next door to Ceasers) was no LLC- in fact they operated at the opposite end of the scale- big on service/comfort/rewards, price was not a key selling point.
Now since I was on the recieving end, so to speak, during this sorry episode I think I can offer a version of events that may just cast a slightly different shade on what the general public has heard. Firstly SAA were involved up to their necks but only only at the end- the real conspirators got away scott free- Comair When Sun Air was privatized the government in its infinite wisedom, allowed a BEE partnership to partner with Comair and purchase 30% of Sun Air- Comair's principle competitor at the time. The result of this was that Comair appoined a representitve to the Sun Air board who then could report back as to any new initiatives Sun Air was planning. Needless to say it wasnt long before the man from Comair started influnecing other board members as to the ability of the Sun Air management team- result- 3 top execs were shown the door and replaced by incompetent fools appointed by the principle BEE shareholder. Lots of great plans in the pipline suddenly stopped- new routes etc.
Their next move was to cut Sun Air off from it support base- the corporate travel agencies who booked Sun Air for their clients. Smaller airlines pay very handsome back end commisions to the larger travel agency groupings to ensure they get traffic- its basically money for jam to the agents but the deals are structured in such a way that they off sell the airlines that dont pay them what they want. Comair knew the deals Sun Air put forward and instead of bettering them they then told the agents that the plan was to merge Sun Air with Comair and so dont worry about signing the Sun Air deal. Result- the biggest travel agency group in the country stoppped selling Sun Air and revenue dropped by 30% overnight. No airline will survive that for long.
Next- symaltaneously both SAA and Comair lowered their fares- mmm.. strange that. As Sun Air never sold on price this was going to make it hard to compete as it was used to selling a premium product at a good price. From then on the writing was on the wall.
The Comair man on the board then suggested to the other BEE partners on the board that perhaps the ship was sinking and a buy out should be orcestrated to save the money they had paid for the airline. A brilliant move as it they suggested that SAA may be interested in buying- enter Coleman. He must have thought it was christmas! he quickly promised the BEE chaps that he would gladly buy. Before the ink was dry on the document Coleman announced the purchase the the closure of Sun Air due to its precarious financial position. Notice here that Comair never uttered a word- they had millions pumped into Sun Air and they quite happily let it flow down the drain- but their pay off was the increased market share they thought they were going to get.
The real joke of the whole thing was then the BEE guys asked for their cash- Coleman refused to pay! nice. In fact SAA only paid the liqudators a few months ago- 14 million, cheap at the price.
So Comair's name was never dragged throught the mud and SAA took the heat. The last part of the story is also quite interesting becuase SAA had not paid for Sun Air, some of the ex management of the airline found another backer and offered a counter deal to the BEE guys- Sun Air still had its operating license and had aircraft available - this was based on the premise that the leases on the MD82's were paid up and were therefore legally still avialable for use. Not so, Comair and SAA saw this coming and did a deal with Safair to not release the aircraft to the new company. The essence of the deal was that Comair commited to take the leases on all the Sun Air MD82's over, after a cooling off period during which the aircraft were sent overseas- today they are back and flying in Kulula green. SAA sweetend the deal by selling SAFAIR its B737-200 fleet and leasing it back.
Where SAA were really sharp was the day Sun Air closed down they had senior management over at the Sun Air offices hireing key staff and managers as well as getting the frequent flier database onto Voyager. Comair sort of woke up a few days later but by then all the key people and information was already at Airwasy Park and therefore inacessible to them.
Comair also didnt get all the Sun Air passengers as they had hoped- the real winner here was Nationwide as this event really allowed them a foothold in the market. Today Nationwide is bigger, in market share terms, than Sun Air was and their key competitor is Comair (of course both compete very effectivley with SAA too!)
Whenever I see Comair bleeting about SAA and its uncompetitive
tactis I remember the Sun Air episode -they were quite happy to play dirty with SAA to get what they wanted.