THE crash of an SA Airlink Jetstream 41 in Durban a little more than six weeks ago continues to weigh heavily on CEO Rodger Foster’s mind, with the accident putting passengers on edge and forcing a renewed focus on already rigorous safety standards.
“While an accident can never be ruled out, until this accident happened I believed that Airlink would be one of the last places an accident was likely to happen. We had all the right safety procedures and training to prevent this from happening,” says Foster in SA Airlink’s new offices in Edenvale.
The airline had outgrown its former headquarters near OR Tambo International Airport, and the move to Edenvale marks a fresh start for the airline.
Foster says that while the economic fallout of the September 11 attacks in the US and the Sars virus outbreak in Southeast Asia during 2003 had been tough for the airline, the accident has been by far the airline’s biggest challenge and required much more attention from management.
“My executive team and I have frequently visited our crew in hospital as well as travelled to Durban to see Abraham Mthethwa who was injured in the accident — who by the way is doing very well.”
There is also a renewed focus on safety. That the airline is safe is beyond question, with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) conducting audits before and after the accident, giving the airline a clean bill of health.
SA Airlink has also passed the International Air Transport Association’s Operational Safety Audit, and the CAA’s preliminary accident report confirmed that the accident was not due to poor maintenance or gaps in the airline’s operating standards.
The CAA report attributes the accident to human error. It appears the pilots, after losing power from the right-hand engine, inexplicably shut off the remaining engine, preventing them from flying safely back to the airport.
While the aircraft had lost power from one of its engines, it is designed and certified to fly on a single engine.
The aircraft crashed in a school yard not far from Durban International Airport as the pilots attempted a forced landing, seriously injuring all three crew members and Mthethwa, a council worker. Captain Allister Freeman died a few days after the accident.
While Foster is not willing to discuss the outcome of the CAA investigation before it is finalised and published, he says that the airline is taking steps to prevent this sort of accident from re curring. It is reviewing its recruitment policy and reinforcing its operating procedures and training.
“Despite all our safety procedures, the one thing that cannot be completely eliminated is how people react in a crisis. You can simulate a crisis and submit pilots to psychometric tests to see how they react under pressure, but ultimately you can never know that they will be bulletproof in a crisis. But what we can do, and have done, is step up the line function to ensure set-out procedures are followed no matter what happens in the cockpit.”
While the airline management has attempted to be as transparent as possible in the aftermath, the accident has obviously focused the public’s attention on the airline.
“We are under a microscope, with every incident analysed,” Foster says. “On Sunday, we had an aircraft headed for Nelspruit turn back to Johannesburg after a suspected hydraulic failure. A warning light alerted pilots to the fact the hydraulic system was overheating and as a precautionary Captain Karen Croucamp elected to return to Johannesburg.”
Croucamp was very open about what was happening in the cockpit, but that had the unintended consequence of unnerving some of the passengers, who feared the worst. “The situation was completely under control,” Foster says, “and the passengers were never in any danger. If anything we were overcautious. But while for the airline this was a non-event, we appreciate that for passengers the experience can be extremely traumatic.
“This has made management think more carefully about how crews communicate potential problems with passengers without causing unnecessary panic, but at the same time being as transparent as possible.
“We are not sure what the answer is and management and the crews are working through some standard responses to these incidents when they do occur,” says Foster.
The September accident has occupied much of management’s time and has capped a difficult year for the airline. Not unlike other airlines worldwide, it has also had to face severe economic challenges, battling falling passenger numbers and rising costs. “We saw passenger volumes fall 6% in the year to August this year ,” says Foster.
Nevertheless, the airline managed to maintain a profit margin of 4% and improved revenue 15,3% to R1,42bn.
Despite carrying fewer passengers, SA Airlink maintained its average air fare through a strong focus on yield management, or what Foster prefers to call “revenue optimisation”. He admits that the airline has been criticised for its high fares. However, he points to the airline’s own continuing research, which shows that SA Airlink’s fares are a third or more lower than fares for a similar service in Europe or the US. “South Africans buy their fares in rands and therefore expect them to be priced as such. However, for the local airlines the weak rand presents a major challenge with most of our costs — including aircraft, parts, fuel and IT systems — priced in dollars or euros, yet we have to price our service in rands.
“It is for this reason we have airlines in SA with fleets more than 20 years old. Despite the fuel efficiency of new aircraft, the cost of using new aircraft is not sustainable, particularly in the low-cost market, where airlines need load factors of above 80% to be profitable.”
Foster claims that SA Airlink is able to remain profitable at load factors of between 60% and 70%, allowing it to operate a modern fleet of Jetstream 41s, Avro RJ85s and Embraer 135s.
SA Airlink, operated as a franchise of South African Airways since 1997, is a network airline serving many of the region’s secondary cities. While it does serve a point-to-point market, it relies heavily on long-haul carriers such as SAA to provide traffic. “About 45% of our traffic comes through interline agreements with other airlines, with SAA providing the bulk of that.”
The airline has little competition on the routes it serves, with the low-cost airlines and SAA flying to SA’s bigger cities. It also has little competition from SA Express, also a network airline and SAA franchisee. The three airlines — SA Airlink, SA Express and SAA — rarely serve the same destination and if they do, they do not serve the same market.
Looking forward, Foster sees the regional airline market recovering, following the broader economy. “While many of our domestic destinations are still under pressure, most of our over-border destinations are doing well. As commodity prices recover, our routes to Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique are performing extremely well.”
A major area of growth for SA Airlink is Mozambique, with the airline recently adding Beira to its network. It also flies to Maputo and Pemba. It is not the leisure sector that excites Foster about Mozambique but the business traveller. “There is a huge amount of mining and industrial activity taking place in the north ..... There is a lot of mining activity in and around Pemba, while Tete has vast coal reserves, which are now beginning to be mined. Then there are plans to build a deep- water port in Nacala, which together with the port in Beira will attract extensive business from landlocked countries such as Zimbabwe and Zambia.”
The airline has had a long relationship with Mozambique’s second designated carrier, Transporte e Trabalho Aereo (TTA), and management is close to announcing a transaction that will bring the two closer .
Like SA Airlink’s relationship with Swaziland Airlink, the airlines will form a joint venture vehicle whereby both own a stake in a new airline, but with SA Airlink managing the carrier and providing the aircraft. The transaction is likely to open up new destinations in the region.
SA Airlink is also exploring a similar arrangement in west Africa but until a deal is done Foster is tightlipped.
The airline will need more aircraft as it grows. It has a commitment to buy several Embraer 170s but Foster believes that the Avro RJ65s are better suited to its African plans.
As Foster walks me around the airline’s new offices at the end of our interview, it is clear that this is an airline management with growth on its mind. While the September accident has caused management to pause for thought, there is no doubt they plan to emerge stronger from it.
Until this ... happened I believed that Airlink would be one of the last places an accident was likely to happen