The SA Cabin Crew Association has called on the government move swiftly and intervene in the prolonged grounding of Mango airlines.
“We believe that the Department of Transport and Department of Public Enterprises should be intervening because what in fact this does is ground Mango longer,” said the president of the association Zazi Sibanyoni-Mugambi.
“It basically stifles any further conversations with the new bidder which is going to take over Mango.”
On Monday, the Air Services Licensing Council suspended Mango’s licences with immediate effect for two years. The airline had already been grounded for over a year. It has been in voluntary business rescue since July 28 2021.
The Air Services Licencing Act, which governs the country’s aviation licensing regime, requires that operations of airlines not be interrupted or grounded for more than 12 months if they want to keep their licences.
As a result of failing to keep its airlines operating for a year, the council has suspended Mango operations as per the licensing regime.
In May, Mango’s business rescue practitioner Sipho Sono said he was heading to court in a bid to access the remaining funds government allocated to the low-cost subsidiary of SAA, according to media reports.
Parliament approved a special allocation of R819-million for Mango’s restructuring, from R10.5-billion allocated to SAA by Treasury.
According to Sono’s latest business rescue status update report released in May, the Department of Public Enterprises transferred R399-million, the balance still owed of the R819-million, to SAA in March.
At the time SAA has, however, only transferred to Mango R89-million of the R399-million required for “certain urgent payments”, according to media reports.
However, the DPE has set certain conditions before SAA can transfer the rest of the money.
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