Correction to a few of my past references. When I used the term Complaint's Commission I of course was refering to the Competition's Board as headed by Dave Lewis.
The same Board that never did anything about the Comair/Sun Air and Nationwide complaint about SAA's seat dumping tactics. The board that found that if SAA bought Sun Air and liquidated it that if would not be anti-competative. SAA has and always did have a monopoly on the domestic route. In their own Board Room minutes Coleman stated that SAA could expect to pick up 75% of Sun Air's traffic if this transpired. This would increase SAA's (already commanding monopoly) from some 60 something percent to well into the 70 % bracket. Any idiot knows that such a monopoly has to be anti-competative and that this in conjunction with SAA's long precident of anti-competative actions, and the already pending seat dumping complaint, makes it even more unbelievewable that any rational person (without other motives) could not see that the closure of Sun Air would lead to an anti-competative industry and a controlled duopoly forming. Add to this the fact that the Competition's board had been informed of the proposal made to Vernon Bricknal of Nationwide (where SAA and Comair proposed to slice up the market after Sun Air's demise -Sun Air was not yet closed -note) and can anyone believe that this was going to be in the interests of the consumer and result in fair competition.
Now the Boards findings found that the market could not support 4 airlines. Apart from SAA and Comair (and a few shaky correspondents touting themselves as aviation experts) this is not the sentiment of the aviation community as a whole. As one real aviation expert (who sit's on the DOT's Licencing Council) stated - who is to say that 6 Airlines cannot be accomodated providing SAA's monopoly can be broken.
Well a Virgin/KLM foothold in th SA domestic/regional market could well have broken that hold. Of course the only airline that has been operating at a loss in the past few years has been SAA.....which Andrews, is, was and with fair competition (and without employing most of Sun Air's Cabin Attendants) always would be a SICK COMPANY. But no-one closed down SAA .....by airline terms a far more liquid company than Sun Air. But Andrews justifies a few months of losses (after SAA's years of the same) as justification to close Sun Air down. But I waste my time...I do not believe anyone believes his warped rhetoric anyway. He must be pretty stupid to believe anyone but his own cronies does believe him...and can you believe it some of them do.
Of course if one inspects any closer, one finds that the only information and parties consulted or considered by the Board were the Shareholders (who obviously wanted to sell the company - or/and didn't care if it was closed down) - and the report prepared by Bain & Co. Bain & Co. is an American consultancy firm, basically brought into the country by Coleman as consultents to SAA and rumoured to have Colemen Andrews as a founder member, or past member in any case.
No other interested party, or the public were represented or consulted. Pretty much a suspect one sided affair.
Nothing left to say that no-one I have spoken to - and that is a lot of people in Government and the industry - save for Comair and SAA and Dave Lewis himself, agree with the Boards findings.
On the SAA claims of innocence etc. on the Seat Dumping, anti-competitive allegations and complaints.
SAA claims that the Competition's Board found no substance in the allegations. I had a letter read to me by the MD Comair which said that the CB "....found prima facia evidence to support the allegations". By the time this letter was composed by the Board....months after the initial complaint had lodged, with Sun Air suffering losses due to the incompetence and inertia of the CB, Sun Air had commenced negotiations with SAA. As it transpired, injudiciously dancing with the devil. But with no recourse seemingly pending from the CB, one can mitigate this action.
Sun Air, as principle complainant dropped it's complaint (and Comair and Nationwide in the process) when Andrews said that he couldn't conduct negotiations with Sun Air if it continued with its complaint. Sun Air directors and shareholders walked straight into the lion's mouth after feeding it.
Despite the evidence the CB still didn't do anything about the matter, but suggested that the parties SAA, Comair and Nationwide meet to try and resolve the matter. Bound to be really effective Mr. Lewis.
Well SAA and Comair did meet. Not quite as Lewis anticipated. Comair allowed the SAA plan to go ahead, Sun Air was closed down. Fares were increased to profitable (lucrative) levels, the remaining airlines picked up the traffic, Comair dropped it's complaint and everyone made a killing.
Rethabele might not have been doing much of a job running Sun Air. They might have been greedy and naive to deal with SAA when other airlines and investors had offered to buy their shares. But it was the ineptitude, inertia and lack of action of the Competition's Board that prompted the battle weary Rethabele shareholders (already struggling with hostile Comair controlled co-directors) to abandon their dream of owning the only black airline in SA. They could have done better, but under the circumstances, it was not easy.