ATTITUDE FOR ALTITUDE: GUY LEITCH
Each year I try hand out light-hearted Oscar awards for the best and worst actors and performances in aviation over the past year. But 2021 was for many just a re-run of the 2020 nightmare. I reckon we as an industry, and indeed the whole world, are the walking wounded from the Covid-19 pandemic. THE HUMOUR THAT I TRY inject into this column is hard to find or make, as the longawaited recovery has tested everyone’s fortitude. This column is therefore a more sober assessment of what the new normal is that we are having to come to terms with.
The Airline Industry
the aviation industr y leads a recession and lags its recover y
The much hoped for recovery of the aviation industry has been patchy at best. Incredibly, some airlines have done well out of Covid. In Africa, Ethiopian deftly switched to cargo flying and this got it through the worst of the protracted, and repeated, lockdowns. In South Africa, Airlink has done amazingly well, newly emancipated from its odious and toxic SAA licence agreement. This is largely due to two things: First: Airlink management’s prudent commitment to investing
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December / January 2021/22
in building a strong balance sheet during the good times. Second: management’s use of its strong balance sheet to take advantage of the gaps in the market created by the failure of the weaker airlines, most notably SAA, Comair/ kulula and Mango. It is a clear indication of how inefficient the other SA domestic airlines had become that Airlink can successfully operate its smallgauge Embraer E190s on the low-cost carrier routes. CemAir too is to be commended for surviving a sustained and attack from the CAA which seemed determined to drive it into bankruptcy. But instead, SA Express failed and CemAir is being allowed to get on with being a great little airline. Like Airlink, it is growing well on the strength of solid management and good decision making. For the African air transport industry as a whole, 2021 was also just a long drawn-out
