Romeo E.T.
4th Jul 2007, 13:41
Taken from a forum that isn't allowed to be mentioned here....interesting reading though....ruffling of some feathers and opening of some wounds...
Quote:
The airline that wanted Sun Air out of business the most was Comair. In the later 90’s Sun Air was kicking Comair’s butt- Comair had no answer to what was the best product in the market at that time. Their opportunity came to do something about this when Sun Air was privatized- Comair put in a joint bid with a BEE consortium. Comair bought 20 percent and the BEE crowd, Ratabele if I remember correctly, bought 60 odd percent. The government didn’t see a problem with Comair’s participation and the deal went ahead. Well sort of because the BEE guys couldn’t come up with the cash, but that didn’t matter as the government overlooked this inconvenient fact and let them carry on.
To cut a long story short Comair advised their BEE partners that the Sun Air Management team were feeding them a line of BS and they would vet any board decisions before they were made. The net result is that not one initiative we sent to the board for approval was ever approved. This was followed up with the dismissal of the Head of Commercial and finance as well as the key individuals in his department. Comair also pulled a really neat trick with our biggest retail travel supporter at the time- someone who was supporting Sun Air more than Comair, the then head of sales for Comair told them not to renew their override agreement with Sun Air as Comair and Sun Air would in future be included in the Comair deal. The net result was that a huge chunk of Sun Air’s turnover disappeared overnight. While damage repair was underway to fix this blatant lie, the Comair directors on the board used this to show that Sun Air was going down the tubes. The Ratabele guys got well scared and wanted out. Comair then approached SAA to buy out the Ratabele shares- Coleman went for the deal as most of the purchase price was to be underwritten by Sun Air unflown coupons (SAA subsequently realised a tidy sum from the carriage of ex- Sun Air traffic) Coleman bought Ratabele out and shut the airline down- with the other major share holder- COMAIR’s- agreement. Sun Air closed its doors with over 40 mil in cash in the bank as well as more money owed to it via BSP- money that went to SAA in the end.
Then all the dirty deals were done around the MD’s where Safair refused us access to the aircraft despite the leases being up to date and guaranteed funding being available to cover future commitments. Comair also signed a commitment to take the aircraft on lease after they were sent offshore for a few years (something SAA insisted on) these aircraft returned and formed the nucleus of the Kulula fleet.
Sun Air’s CEO was given a cushy little job at SAFAIR before going to Kenya to stuff up an airline there- much like anything he ever touched.
Comair didn’t get the market share Sun Air vacated, that almost all was divided up between SAA and Nationwide. The reason SAA got there was because they got hold of the Sun Air FFP -Air reward’s database, they did this the day the announcement was made. At the same time they basically recruited most of the airline’s key staff. By the time Comair woke up a week later and came looking for the spoils of war there was nothing but empty offices, it took them another 2 weeks before they were able to make sense of the FFP database- by which time SAA had offered all the members equal status and matched their miles therefore the uptake for Comair was very low.
Comair’s part in the deal has largely been overlooked which I suppose is testament to their ability to keep it quite, although they have paid the price in another way- the commitment they made to those MD80’s did not pan out as planned and I suppose has cost them in the long run, the wheel always turns....
Quote:
The airline that wanted Sun Air out of business the most was Comair. In the later 90’s Sun Air was kicking Comair’s butt- Comair had no answer to what was the best product in the market at that time. Their opportunity came to do something about this when Sun Air was privatized- Comair put in a joint bid with a BEE consortium. Comair bought 20 percent and the BEE crowd, Ratabele if I remember correctly, bought 60 odd percent. The government didn’t see a problem with Comair’s participation and the deal went ahead. Well sort of because the BEE guys couldn’t come up with the cash, but that didn’t matter as the government overlooked this inconvenient fact and let them carry on.
To cut a long story short Comair advised their BEE partners that the Sun Air Management team were feeding them a line of BS and they would vet any board decisions before they were made. The net result is that not one initiative we sent to the board for approval was ever approved. This was followed up with the dismissal of the Head of Commercial and finance as well as the key individuals in his department. Comair also pulled a really neat trick with our biggest retail travel supporter at the time- someone who was supporting Sun Air more than Comair, the then head of sales for Comair told them not to renew their override agreement with Sun Air as Comair and Sun Air would in future be included in the Comair deal. The net result was that a huge chunk of Sun Air’s turnover disappeared overnight. While damage repair was underway to fix this blatant lie, the Comair directors on the board used this to show that Sun Air was going down the tubes. The Ratabele guys got well scared and wanted out. Comair then approached SAA to buy out the Ratabele shares- Coleman went for the deal as most of the purchase price was to be underwritten by Sun Air unflown coupons (SAA subsequently realised a tidy sum from the carriage of ex- Sun Air traffic) Coleman bought Ratabele out and shut the airline down- with the other major share holder- COMAIR’s- agreement. Sun Air closed its doors with over 40 mil in cash in the bank as well as more money owed to it via BSP- money that went to SAA in the end.
Then all the dirty deals were done around the MD’s where Safair refused us access to the aircraft despite the leases being up to date and guaranteed funding being available to cover future commitments. Comair also signed a commitment to take the aircraft on lease after they were sent offshore for a few years (something SAA insisted on) these aircraft returned and formed the nucleus of the Kulula fleet.
Sun Air’s CEO was given a cushy little job at SAFAIR before going to Kenya to stuff up an airline there- much like anything he ever touched.
Comair didn’t get the market share Sun Air vacated, that almost all was divided up between SAA and Nationwide. The reason SAA got there was because they got hold of the Sun Air FFP -Air reward’s database, they did this the day the announcement was made. At the same time they basically recruited most of the airline’s key staff. By the time Comair woke up a week later and came looking for the spoils of war there was nothing but empty offices, it took them another 2 weeks before they were able to make sense of the FFP database- by which time SAA had offered all the members equal status and matched their miles therefore the uptake for Comair was very low.
Comair’s part in the deal has largely been overlooked which I suppose is testament to their ability to keep it quite, although they have paid the price in another way- the commitment they made to those MD80’s did not pan out as planned and I suppose has cost them in the long run, the wheel always turns....