FlySafair’s wings are clipped by South Africa’s High Court at the point of take-off

FlySafair's ambitions to launch services on South Africa's biggest domestic route between Johannesburg and Cape Town from 17-Oct-2013 have been dealt a severe blow by a High Court interdict issued on 8-Oct-2013 restraining FlySafair from operating scheduled domestic passenger services pending a review of South Africa's Air Service Licensing Council's (ASLC) decision to grant the carrier a licence to operate.

The interim injunction has stalled, temporarily at least, a looming battle in the South African domestic market into which FlySafair and fellow LCC start-up SkyWise are planning to launch, ending a brief period where the South African Airways and Comair groups enjoyed a duopoly following the demise of LCC 1time in Nov-2012.

Comair, which operates as LCC Kulula, and the full service British Airways franchise combined forces with would-be competitor SkyWise to block FlySafair's launch by challenging the ASLC's decision. Comair and SkyWise claim that FlySafair does not meet South Africa's maximum 25% foreign ownership limit to operate domestic services and that one of its directors is not a resident of South Africa.