South Africa’s Nationwide latest airline to fail
30.04.08
South African airline Nationwide has cancelled its entire schedule after encountering cash flow problems. It joins a growing list of airline casualties in recent weeks, with record fuel prices and the current economic crisis causing carriers including Eos, ATA and Frontier Airlines to fold.
Nationwide has faced problems since November 2007 when one of its Boeing 737 planes lost an engine when taking off from Cape Town. The airline was forced to ground its fleet over maintenance concerns. The airline resumed operations a month later, but the problems had a significant impact on its passenger load factors at a busy time of year for the airline.
CEO Vernon Bricknell said: ‘Our cash flow has become critical and as a result we have decided to voluntarily cease all flight operations until further notice. In the months of December and January we resumed operations and attained a gradual recovery of the business. However, in the months of March and April we faced a 30% increase in fuel costs coupled with a decrease in passenger load factors.’
Founded in 1991 the airline operated around 50 domestic and international flights a day from the country, including four times weekly flights to Gatwick from Johannesburg.
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