Guy Leitch 
It is an aphorism to say that aviation safety is a matter of life or death and thus safety must be non-negotiable. Using this justification, the South African Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) gets away with being quick to ground airlines for breaches of safety requirements.
GROUNDING AN AIRLINE is the ultimate sanction and causes immeasurable harm to, not just the target airline, but to the entire aviation industry. I have not been able to find any other airline regulator anywhere in the world that is remotely as heavy-handed as the current South African CAA regime. Before 2018 it was unheard of for the CAA to ground an airline and it is hard to find examples of it happening anywhere else in the world. Yet in the past four years, under the hand of Director Poppy Khoza, the CAA has grounded airlines at least an incredible 7 times.
CAN THE CAA BE TRUSTED?
It would seem that the CAA is once again on an unchecked rampage. In developed countries, if the aviation regulator has a problem with an airline, it makes a formal complaint or allegation and then an independent body adjudicates the complaint. The principle of ‘audi alteram partem’ – or letting the other side be heard, is thus observed. This is particularly necessary with the CAA, which was found to have wrongfully grounded Cemair fleet.
There are many other problems with the CAA’s grounding of Comair. A ‘precautionary suspension’ implies that they do not in fact have evidence of possible ‘imminent danger’. Aviation Economist Dr Joachim Vermooten says this is unacceptable. Further, it is unheard of for a regulator to ground an entire airline – at the most a specific aircraft or even a type (eg the Boeing Max) may be grounded.
‘they do not have evidence of imminent danger’
The CAA’s heavy-handedness raises the question of whether its bureaucrats have any understanding of just how vulnerable the airline industry is, especially immediately post-COVID. The CAA’s standard response is that, as safety is un-negotiable, the health of an airline’s balance sheet is of no concern when there are questions about safety.
Yet things are never that simple: One of the most striking characteristics of the CAA having grounded Comair is yet again the extraordinary bad timing.
Almost every time the CAA has grounded an airline, it has been timed to cause maximum damage to the airline and problems for the passengers. Thus, the CAA grounded Cemair shortly before the start of the December 2018 holidays. The Comair grounding happened over the weekend of the huge Cape Cycle Race – one of the busiest weekends of the year for air travel. It’s hard not to conclude that the timing is intended to cause maximum disruption to paying passengers, deeply damage revenue, and undermine confidence in the airline.
The problem with the timing of Comair’s and other airlines’ grounding, is it brings into question the integrity of the CAA. It exposes the regulator to accusations that it favours SAA, and now more recently, that of favouring SAA Technical (SAAT). At the end of March, the case against the CAA became unbelievably egregious when, after all but forcing Comair to move to SAAT from Lufthansa Technik, the regulator then ‘grounded’ SAAT, effectively grounding Comair yet again.
It is hard not to conclude that the SAAT suspension was lifted by an embarrassed CAA just four hours later when it was realised that it would prevent Cyril Ramaphosa taking off that morning in an SAA A340 to Dubai.
CAA DOUBLE STANDARDS
When we buy an airline ticket, we entrust our lives to a system that we expect to be above corruption. Yet there is clear evidence that the CAA practices double standards, favouring state owned airlines. This possibility first arose from the persistent campaign the CAA waged against Cemair in 2018 – ostensibly in an attempt to save Cemair’s competitor; the moribund state-owned SA Express.
Another criticism of the CAA is that of practising double standards for its own flight department and the airlines it regulates. This emerged from the damning findings of the Ethiopian Air Accident Investigation Board into the crash of the CAA’s Cessna Citation nav aid calibration jet at George. The investigation found that the jet was not airworthy and the crew not properly licenced.
These findings should, at the very minimum, have made the CAA more aware of the impossibility of ensuring a fully compliant flight operations department. And thus, it should give the regulator pause before peremptorily shutting down Comair – or any other airline.
Yet another accusation against the CAA is its evident favouritism for SAA. It granted 13 safety exemptions to SAA to operate the now infamously profligate COVID vaccine flight to Brussels. These flights, to fetch a pallet of vaccines which could have been airfreighted at a thousandth of the cost, were nothing more than a public relations’ stunt by a bankrupt airline. The Airbus A340-600 came within a whisker of ending in a fireball off the end of OR Tambo’s runway 24R, and it then went on to bust the speed and noise rules on takeoff from Brussels airport.
One of the tricky questions in any discussion as to the actions of the CAA is whether it grounds airlines purely on the basis of paperwork boxes not having been ticked, or whether there are really, as the CAA has claimed, “immediate threats to safety” in terms of physical problems with the aircraft. The fact that Comair was able to return to flying after just four days’ grounding strongly indicates that there really was nothing more than a paperwork problem.
It’s worth noting that traditionally, the standard method for the regulator to deal with paperwork lapses by an airline operator was to summons the offending airline’s Chief Executive in for a meeting over the proverbial ‘cup of cold tea and no biscuit’. The head of the CAA would give the CEO of the airline an ultimatum which would be taken extremely seriously and this would avoid the airline having to be grounded.
CAN COMAIR SURVIVE?
The 67-year old airline is a cornerstone of South African aviation. It carries around 40% of all domestic passengers and employs more than 1,200 highly skilled people. The damage incurred by the grounding is disastrous at two levels: the first and most obvious is the loss of revenue and the costs associated with the grounding over the Cape Town Cycle Tour long weekend. The second level of damage is the immeasurable reputational damage. Airline margins are notoriously thin, and if prospective passengers perceive a greater risk, they will book on a competitor.
An interesting wrinkle for Comair is whether the reputational damage the grounding has done to the British Airways brand may induce British Airways head office to end its valuable licensing agreement with Comair.
How long can Comair survive? Already it has admitted to needing further funding. The airline is still under business rescue and was delisted from the JSE, so it must rely for further capital and operational funding on the depth of the pockets of the current owners and their commitment to supporting the airline.
LUFTHANSA TECHNIK
Another, perhaps more surprising casualty of this unfortunate saga, is maintenance organisation Lufthansa Technik. The South African branch of this world-renowned AMO has now also fallen foul of the CAA and had its operating licence suspended indefinitely, this despite having passed an inspection by CAA in February.
Yet again it brings into question the CAA’s impartiality in that the grounding of Lufthansa Technik favours SAA Technical, which, as a subsidiary of SAA, was on the ropes – with even less in the way of bailout funding than its parent received.
But in fairness, it must also be noted that in late 2019, SAA Technical was also hit by the withdrawal of its license by the CAA, which resulted in the grounding of SAA and Mango. It must be noted though, that given that the CAA has at various times also grounded SAA, Mango and SA Express, it makes it harder to claim without qualification that the CAA is protecting state owned airlines.
‘Ms Khoza should be quietly promoted’
A striking feature of the Comair grounding is that the DCA, Ms Poppy Khoza, has been notable by her absence, leaving facing the media mostly to her second level managers. This is not the leading from the front we would expect from the head of the organisation entrusted with airline safety.
The CAA is looking very exposed by these failures of governance of its own flight department, double standards and accusations of ‘capture’. In a developed society with normal accountability standards, this would have been more than sufficient to force Ms Poppy Khoza’s resignation as Director of Civil Aviation (DCA).
The industry desperately needs an ombudsman – and Ms Khoza should be quietly promoted to ICAO in Canada.
