Déja vu...
I stumbled over this thread by accident and all this VIA stuff seems all too familiar...
I have dealt with Avstar before when they were operating in the Comores. The fact that they 'forgot' to file their flight schedule, is ops normal for Avstar management. The fact that the finger was then pointed at the Kenyans is also pretty much 'ops normal'.
The Comorean operation (Royal Aviation) suffered a similar fate, just not as public as VIA.
Passengers were flown to Madagascar and Tanzania, and then never picked up again. Staff were not paid and subsequently they had a large turn-over of crew. Crew had been forced to fly while having Malaria - 'Just to keep the business afloat'. A/c maintenance was done by an Auto-Electrician and then subsequently signed out by a company back at Lanseria. They had 2 a/c which were used back-to-back, and flown almost empty between the islands on something that might have resembled a schedule back when humans were still using sun-dials. There are many more 'suspect' occurances, but I will not go into that...
The finger for all of this was then pointed to the Comorean company, which was trying its best to try and make it work, but was not backed-up by their South African partner company.
The management of this company is comprised of a pilot that left Air Mauritius under 'suspicious' circumstances, a school teacher and a 2nd hand a/c salesman. I'm not surprised that they made a stuff-up of this again.
I don't know how they got the investor/s to fall for such a half-baked business plan AGAIN.
If I could offer a warning to anybody that intends to do business with these people: Keep your eyes wide open, your ears to the ground and wear a steel plate on your back!
Cheers!