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In South Africa the travel industry and its consumers are on high alert as the domestic airline debacle heats up, and for once the focus isn’t on the national carrier.



Skywise missed a deadline for monies owed to ATNS and ACSA, some of their flights were subsequently grounded at the weekend, and since that news broke they’ve been having a pretty awful week.

What was a seemingly normal occurrence for a start-up has turned into a media storm for the airline which has only been going for 8 months.

But it's the airline business - the Captain of cutthroat industries, and we've seen this movie before starring Nationwide, 1Time and Velvet Sky. The backlash seems meaner this time. The media bays for blood and it doesn’t smell the same as the sympathy dished out to 1Time and its business rescue plan of 2012.

In a few Tweets you can fairly sum up sentiment from all angles …

The media

The airline

The people

As the legacy carriers and their subsidiaries lock horns with new competitors over the question of increased capacity (they're saying there's too much); you can be sure the bigger players are watching current affairs unfold with an air of smugness as their small competitors start trending for the wrong reasons.

We called this in August when we said the decrease in fare prices on several local routes could be detrimental to the growth of the commercial aviation industry and, following media coverage this week, it looks like it’s coming to a head.

Many questions remain – are the big boys scared of these disruptors with their game-changing business models and low prices? Will the Mango CEO’s “Something’s got to give” statement hold true? Does there need to be a shift in consumers’ mindset to support local for their own good? Will new airlines alienate their customers and champions by criticising the purchasing behaviour of SA’s travelling public, or does this singling out of an airline point to a lack of maturity in our internet penetrated culture?

One thing is certain, it would be a travesty for the airline industry to revert back to a monopoly. Although, for an airline which hasn’t been able to expand its route network beyond Cape Town and Johannesburg, will it even make a difference to consumers’ pockets?

*Russel Jarvis is head of communications at Travelstart - the largest booking site in Africa, Middle East and Turkey.

