Airlink has lodged an application with the Pretoria High Court to review the International Air Services Council’s (IASC) awarding of licenses to SA Express on particular routes, on the grounds that these were granted without all stipulated compliance requirements being met.
SAX received approval to fly three new cross-border routes: Cape Town-Gabarone, Johananebsurg-Bulawayo and return flights to Luanda (see TNW October 30).
Regulations require the submission of evidence of ‘financial capability”, including audited financial statements, current profit and loss statements, balance sheets and statements of retained earnings, as well as a clear business case, Airlink said in a statement.
Airlink’s concern is that IASC made its decision in the absense of any recent set of audited accounts for SAX and disregarded the public enterprises minister’s advice to Parliament in September that the carrier was not a going concern.
“We believe that there is a licencing council issue, where it hasn’t fairly applied the criteria for awarding licenses as laid out in the International Air Services Act,” says md of Airlink Rodger Foster. “SAX would be recklessly spending taxpayers’ money by making investments into a new market even though it has not demonstrated its financial fitness,” Rodger says.
Meanwhile, at the request of the Competition Commission, Airlink withdrew its request for an urgent interdict that would suspend the IASC’s decision, he says. The CompComm believes that Airlink is being anti-competitve in trying to prevent SAX from operating these routes, says Rodger.
The application to the High Court could take up to a year to be heard, which is why the urgent interdict was requested, Rodger says.
“However, we don’t want to be seen as engaging in any anti-competitive behaviour and we must demonstrate this by withdrawing our request for the interdict.”
At the time of going to print, SAX had not responded to questions from TNW.
