Indian Ocean island tour operators are standing by, ready to assist customers whose travel plans could be affected by the suspension of BA Comair and kulula.com flights beyond this week. On a route such as Mauritius, which already has a shortage of seats, the removal of the BA Comair flights will have repercussions for many operators.
Most operators are waiting until schedules are confirmed before they rebook, and everyone is holding thumbs and hoping that the flights will be able to resume in time for the June and July Mauritius holiday season.
On Tuesday night (May 31), Comair suddenly announced the suspension of all BA Comair and kulula flights. The company said it needed emergency funding to continue operating (see Travel News’ report here).
Beachcomber Tours said on Thursday (June 2), that BA Comair’s flights to Mauritius had been cancelled until June 7. The tour operator had 18 affected pax in Mauritius at the time the flights were suspended, and they had needed to be re-accommodated.
Beachcomber Tours MD, Terry Munro, explained: “We will not change flights taking place after June 7. It can be costly with amendment fees, etc. This means that we are working on changes up to and including June 7, with the hope that Comair sorts out its finances soon.”
Earlier in the week, Thompsons Holidays CEO, Joanne Adolphe, said BA was not a preferred supplier for Thompsons, but said, generally, airline capacity to Mauritius was already in short supply.
Adolphe reported good demand for Mauritius over the upcoming June-July school holidays. “We could definitely fill another two or three aircraft each week, based on the demand so far this year.”
Comair did not immediately respond to questions about how passengers would be compensated for their bookings on the unflown flights, but, said Adolphe: “The concern is that the airline will only give vouchers. What will that help? Once again, the consumer is hit and will have to re-buy flights.”
Recently kulula announced charter flights to Zanzibar in conjunction with AfricaStay. The company had used a kulula aircraft to operate four charter flights shortly before the suspension. AfricaStay has reassured its trade partners that the charter service to Zanzibar is secure. CEO, Marian Sandu, said AfricaStay had not been significantly impacted by the situation and confirmed that it had a charter contract in place with Global Aviation for the rest of the year.
Sandu said AfricaStay would be in touch with customers booked to travel to Mauritius and Zanzibar about any changes. To date, he said AfricaStay had carried over 10 000 passengers to Zanzibar on more than 60 charter flights. Sandu said the plan was to operate three flights a week between SA and Zanzibar in December. With Mango Airlines still grounded, AfricaStay's charters remain the only direct airline route to the island.
“I’m hoping, if one of the commercial airlines gets a licence to operate to Zanzibar that we could work closely with them like we used to with Mango.” He said he hoped that BA could resume operations soon.
Meantime, FlySafair has approached the Air Services Licensing Council to explore the possibility of adding more flights to Mauritius. Chief Marketing Officer, Kirby Gordon, confirmed: “We are looking into it, but it’s a slightly complicated matter because we only have the rights to operate two weekly frequencies, so we are at our maximum on the route. We have approached the South African International Air Services Licensing Council for some additional frequencies to see if there’s a way we can be permitted to assist and, at the same time, we are evaluating whether there is an aircraft and crew we could deploy. Of course, the need for those two things is pretty great on the domestic network too and generally we chase strict efficiencies on our schedule so we pretty much have everything and everyone deployed. It’s quite tough to squeeze more juice out of this fruit.”
About the possibility of Zanzibar charter services, he added: “We would be able to operate charters without route rights issues. It’s different when you have a single client chartering a whole aircraft versus putting up a flight for sale and selling the seats off individually, in terms of operating and licensing rights. Again, the constraint on this would of course be metal and crew hours.”
