THE grounding of CemAir by
the South African Civil Aviation
Authority (SACAA) has cost the
airline at least R100 million
in damages and left 6 600
passengers stranded.
This is according to the
airline’s latest argument
presented to the High Court
this past week, following the
most recent grounding of
the airline on January 11.
CemAir is seeking interim
relief from the High Court,
which temporarily lifted the
December suspension,
allowing the airline to resume
operations.
Judgement was meant to be
passed on Monday, January
21. However, TNW understands
that this has been postponed
until Thursday, January 24. The
airline remains grounded.
The case is a matter of
urgency for the airline, which
claims it has around 6 600
passengers booked to fly on
its network between the date
its arguments were presented
to court on January 15 and
the end of the month. “On
average, CemAir contends
that it services between 500
and 600 passengers per day,”
the argument reads. It also
claims that, at the time, the
value of the forward bookings
of passengers to whom it had
sold flights was in excess of
R25m.
The December grounding left
the airline with almost R100m
in damages. The airline told
the court that it had lost two
long-term contracts with the
United Nations as a direct
result of not being able to
service them. These two
contracts alone were worth
over R35m, the airline said.
SACAA said the January 11
suspension came over
concerns about what it called
the systematic failure of the
airline’s maintenance controls.
CemAir’s contentions are that
the suspension notice and the
grounding notice issued to it
by SACAA are “administratively
unjustified” for a number of
reasons.
Suspension costs CemAir R100m, and counting…
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