■ SOUTH AFRICA: LCC Skywise battles on with AOC Certification process.

South African startup, Skywise (SWZ), will likely miss a deferred October launch date after the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) revealed that, to date, the airline had completed 3 of the 5 steps necessary to obtain its Air Operators Certificate.

(Garage East)

In a report published by Tourism Update, SACAA spokeswoman, Phindiwe Gwebu, is quoted as saying that Skywise's chances of obtaining its AOC before year end, and therefore launching, depend on “how quickly it responds to or rectifies queries or difficulties raised at the Document Evaluation (Phase 3)." 

SACAA's AOC evaluation process involves five steps namely: (I) Pre-application (II) Formal application (III) Document Evaluation (IV) Demonstration & Inspection (V) Certification. Only once Phase 3 is successfully completed can Phase 4 (Demonstration & Inspection) be started before Certification (Phase 5) can even be considered.

Said Rodney James, one of Skywise's founders:

“I don't want to make any more predictions, but we're close to being able to peg an AOC issue date, after which we can start committing to milestone dates.”

Skywise, set up by several ex-1Time (T6) board executives including Glenn Orsmond, Michael Kaminski and Johan Borstlap, a former director at defunct domestic carrier Sun Air, obtained its Air Services Licence in March this year and had originally planned to begin operations in August. Initially, a five times daily Johannesburg - Cape Town service was to have been plied with two leased B737-300s.

The startup, combined with Comair Ltd, are the two plaintiffs that have sought to block FlySafair's launch, scheduled to launch on October 17 with its own multiple Johannesburg - Cape Town daily services.