Some more news from Friday's excellent St Helena Indepenent:
ACCESS TO ST HELENA
UPDATE ON ACTIONS
Work is now underway to gather and analyse data and put in
place mitigation measures to deal with turbulence and wind
shear at St Helena Airport - to ensure the safe operation of
regular passenger flights. The safety of aircraft and passen-
gers is, of course, paramount.
As part of this work, shipping access to St Helena and As-
cension Island is also being examined.
Current Actions
· Work is underway to ensure guaranteed access
to St Helena and Ascension Island. There are no
current plans to extend RMS operations - but this is
being kept under review. We will ensure passenger
and freight access to St Helena & Ascension
· The Governor is chairing high level meetings
twice a week to work on access to the islands.
There is also a meeting with Elected Members
each Friday
· The public is being kept regularly informed
through a weekly slot on both radio stations each
Monday afternoon, where questions are invited
· Data is being gathered to allow clear transport
options - including shipping and aircraft options -
to be determined in the week commencing
Monday 23 May 2016. We are looking at long-term
solutions, but will employ interim options if
necessary
· We are also examining ways to ensure medivac flights
are enabled
· Specific steps are being taken to address turbulence
and wind shear at the Airport, involving analysis of all
available and new data, including weather data, plus
formal reports from pilots of all aircraft that have landed
at St Helena Airport. Reports on the strength of wind
conditions will be maintained and regularly updated and
consideration will be given to installing specialised wind
measuring equipment
· Computer modelling is also being developed to test
different scenarios, and some wind tunnel work may
also be carried out
This data collection, analysis and modelling - and subsequent
work to develop new operating procedures and, crucially, to
share this information - will take some time but all parties are
working flat out to commence commercial flights at St Helena
Airport at the earliest possible opportunity.
All of our findings will be carefully documented so that all
potential flights to St Helena (not just Comair flights) have
access to this information and can plan accordingly. Ulti-
mately, information on landing conditions will be included in
the Aerodrome Information Publication required under inter-
national regulatory standards.
The public can be assured that every effort is being made to
commence commercial flights at St Helena Airport at the ear-
liest possible opportunity - and will be kept fully informed as
this work progresses.
SHG
9 May 2016
Comair news
While St Helena wrestles with the wind conditions on the
approach to the airport so Comair passengers can have a
smooth landing, Comair itself is being given a bumpy ride
by one of its business rivals FlySAfair. FlySAfair is a budget
airline in competition with Comair’s own Kulula budget brand.
This report from the South Africa Independent Newspapers
website reports Comair officials in a race to keep their planes
in the air following the latest complaint by Comair’s budget
airline rival.
Comair launches urgent
application
Johannesburg - Comair on Tuesday said it had launched
an urgent application to interdict the Air Services Licensing
Council (ASLC) from suspending its domestic license. This
is pending the outcome of a review by a court of law over
FlySAfair’s three-year long complaint against airline’s for-
eign shareholding. FlySAfair had lodged a complaint with
the ASLC against Comair’s domestic air service license during
the 2013/14 reporting period.
The complaint consisted of the allegation that the Comair
had breached its air license by failing to apply for a license
amendment after undertaking a share repurchase pro-
gramme. A second complaint was that when a “look through”
construction was applied to the Comair’s current foreign
shareholding component, the amount of its shareholding
slightly exceeded the restrictions specified in the Air Serv-
ices Licensing Act. Licensing requirements limit the foreign
shareholding and voting right in domestic airlines to 25 per-
cent.
Bidvest’s BB Investment Company is listed as Comair’s larg-
est shareholder with a 26.91 percent stake, followed by Allan
Gray with 12.9 percent and Britair with 11.5 percent.
In March, Comair was given until 11 May to comply with the
conditions of its Air Services License, without which no air-
line is permitted to operate a commercial air service. But
Comair said it was confident that it was compliant with the
foreign shareholding requirements of the Act based on the
advice of its external legal advisors. Comair, in a statement,
said its view and that of its external legal advisors was that
the ASLC had not commenced suspension proceedings in
accordance with the Act. “The company has requested the
ASLC to agree that it has not commenced suspension pro-
ceedings in accordance with the Act, and has requested the
ASLC to agree not to take any further action against the
company pending the outcome of a review of the ASLC’s
decisions,” Comair said.
“The ASLC has failed to agree to the company’s request.
The company has taken the precaution of launching an ur-
gent application to interdict the ASLC from suspending the
Company’s domestic license, pending the outcome of a re-
view by a court of law.”
The squabbles between the two airlines date back when the
low cost airline FlySAfair took to the skies to compete with
Comair’s low-cost brand kulula.com. A similar complaint put
to the ASLC by Comair in 2013 to stop FlySAfair from oper-
ating was unsuccessful. Comair on Tuesday stressed that
the disagreement with the ASLC did not relate to the safety
of its operations, but exclusively to a shareholder regulatory
issue. Vince Thompson