Karooryder Posted February 16, 2015 Posted February 16, 2015 A heads-up, just saw the following snippet on News 24: http://traveller24.news24.com/News/Flights/SkyWise-moves-maiden-flight-ahead-due-to-public-demand-20150216 ...and then headed over to www.skywise.co.za For those laatsplapers who still need to book travel, you can get a return ticket for the Cycle Tour weekend for under R1000 (the equivalent on the green carrier is now over R3.5k!). Lekker man!
fabs Posted February 16, 2015 Posted February 16, 2015 Is this flight on a real and air worthy airplane ? This is run by the taxi association?
Shebeen Posted February 16, 2015 Posted February 16, 2015 Is this flight on a real and air worthy airplane ? This is run by the taxi association?I thought that was going to start with a jhb-umtata route but never got off the ground. looks like they got good photoshop if nothing else. but all jokes aside, i'm not entirely sure "Less is more" is a good slogan to go with, for an airline.
Shebeen Posted February 16, 2015 Posted February 16, 2015 um, ja it looks like, according to their twitter feed, that the first lfight was earlier this month. FollowSkywise Airline@SkywiseAirline#Skywise will be taking 2 the skies on 5.02.15, routes btwn JNB and CT. For more info, visit http://www.skywise.co.za .
Tumbleweed Posted December 2, 2015 Posted December 2, 2015 When your airline goes bang, what do you do? Well, pen a letter to Cyril of course: 2 DECEMBER 2015Open Letter to the Honorable President Mr. Jacob Zuma & Honourable Deputy President Mr. Cyril RamaphosaThe Journey of Skywise Airline took off on 11 February 2015.It is a 100% private and BEE women owned airline of South Africa currently doing 40 Flights a week between Johannesburg and Cape Town.More than 200 people work for Skywise and it is funded with personal funds without any government support or institutional loan. Any business takes 6-8 months to break even and we were close to that.With only R4 million of arrears with ACSA and R4 Million with ATNS, the airline is already on Fly as You Pay and duly paying its daily commitments to pay in advance. There was an agreement reached to pay the arrears in installments and two installments were duly paid. The third installment was due to be paid on 1 December for which an extension of 48 hours was requested and rejected.We got a notice at 5pm yesterday to be shut down with immediate effect.We have 200 employees who will be jobless not only in the month of Christmas but God knows until when in a country with choking unemployment levels at above 20%. Surely, this is not what we expect from the Government authorities. When Government is spending about R1 billion a day in infrastructure development it is logical that they protect businesses that will complement such efforts and speed up economic growth.While the aviation industry is a catalyst to economic growth, in South Africa it is a world where a few people influence the decision making processes for their own benefits, and are responsible for the previous failure of 11 private airlines.People like us still take the challenge to reduce unemployment, grow the domestic aviation industry and the greater economy only to become a victim of financial stress when billions of rand is readily available to bail out the national carrier.More than R65 million personal funds has been invested in Skywise and 4 years of hard work have brought us so far to serve the needs of South African travellers and continue to offer them affordable air fares.For about 8 months we had made losses and we were now getting to a point where we can break even. With peak season ahead and more than 8000 passengers having booked to fly with Skywise airline, they must be looking forward to have their holidays. Most of them have never flown before and now have a chance to fly on affordable rates because of Skywise airline.For only R8 million in arrears government authorities have shutdown yet another private airline, and close the doors of aviation for new entrepreneurs. If Skywise fail there no entrepreneur will be brave enough to take the challenge to launch into this brutal industry! Will ours will be the 12 to fail!Our aircraft, crews and staff are ready to take off any time, what we need is the government to intervene in this matter urgently and give us a chance to serve the people of South Africa and create more jobs and expertise in this industry. Or accommodate our passengers to fly with South African Airways.Website: www.skywise.co.za.
Tumbleweed Posted December 2, 2015 Posted December 2, 2015 That this airline was going to shut up shop came as little surprise after I read this. Last month, after the latest in its issues, the airline issued a statement directly to certain members of the media. Of course, the PR company had a fit, when they lopped off a lot of the history and tidied up the report. But note the bit about when they got some bad news: THE STORY OF SKYWISE SO FAR A dream came into reality through Pak Africa trying to revive 1time Airlines. 1time was close to our heart and we were one of the thousands of supporters like the ones Skywise has today. Eventually we launched Skywise, a business venture driven by passion and ambitions. The initial 6 months we had to encounter the effects of negativity surrounding the industry. It was hard to get the trust factor from travel agents, corporates, and big distribution channels and institutions... Finally, we managed to gain that trust and faith. We knew from the very beginning that the expansion and growth will come through capitalizing the company. Private investors were very happy with the progress of Skywise. Finally, September came, a time we were excited with the coming of the World Route Conference, where we were going to sign our much awaited merger and announcing an acquisition of new aircrafts. It's on record that I did announce in media about the new aircrafts. Then, here comes the ambassador of aviation on a world platform and confesses: https://youtu.be/x-hCf2S7id8 The investor who is a well-known business personality and doesn’t like being identified is annoyed with the fact that how can an airline be sustained when an ambassador of the aviation industry working for a state owned airline is predicting the future failure of private airlines ! The investor backs off! But Skywise is still hale and hearty! Because we are a people’s airline; we had good load factors, trust and faith of our passengers. There was nothing to worry about.. Everything remains under control in Skywise. We managed to negotiate the terms with the suppliers and service providers for an extension of payment as we have many more private investors interested. We had a choice to select the best deal .. Happy and enthusiastic we attended this conference at a beautiful venue in George. Our Co-CEO Irfan Pardesi is on the panel and we all actively participate and network with all associates. I nominated myself on a position of deputy chairperson of the Airline Association of Southern Africa against Erik Ventor . Thursday to Saturday we were at the conference, full of energy as usual. Saturday we all fly back to Johannesburg and as we land we receive a call from this friend of ours ( does not want to be disclosed ) informing us that we will be grounded by ATNS . We laugh at him ! Telling him that you must be drunk! 6 pm we receive an email from ATNS to pay the dues by Sunday or otherwise they would ground the early morning flights of Monday morning. Monday our morning flight gets grounded and the news is all over. Tuesday we grounded by ACSA again with a short deadline of overnight and the wave of negativity flares up... Reputation damage in this industry is a blow! The word “Grounded “ !!!!!For the record we had 4 flights out of 24 flights affected but this news affected our image which was built after 2000 flights. Since that day all service providers, suppliers who gave 30 days credit are suddenly now giving 30 hours payment notice. More than 150 people work for Skywise. We don't have any bank over drafts or IDC loans. In this industry success is not final and failure is not fatal too. The courage to continue is what counts. We have paid the suppliers and service providers. As an additional security we are covered by liquidation insurance policy of which we pay the premium and not our passengers. We will continue flying our passengers. We want to serve them till the last breath of our life ... Skywise is an emotional brand. We have hearts in Skywise. The red livery on the aircrafts is our blood! We appeal to all those who are responsible for this negativity that please do not be part of the killing of yet one another airline. You might be doing this for your own reasons but unintentionally you are becoming part of this evil trend.. Let the aviation industry be the catalyst of much needed economic growth in this country.
Tumbleweed Posted December 2, 2015 Posted December 2, 2015 Also, note how, in today's statement, there's not one shred of sympathy for the passengers.
Wannabe Posted December 2, 2015 Posted December 2, 2015 Also, note how, in today's statement, there's not one shred of sympathy for the passengers. Why should they worry about the Cash Cow?Their sense of entitlement is far more important.
eddy Posted December 2, 2015 Posted December 2, 2015 Why should they worry about the Cash Cow?Their sense of entitlement is far more important. As a rule, yes, but between all of that rubbish there is one point that is relevant. They were shut down by two organisations that have used your and my money to bail out their competition, which just so happens to be owned by the same shareholder. Oh, and if being shut down by your competitor's owner is not bad enough, the two entities you owe money two have a legislated monopoly created by their common shareholder.
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