Blackie Komani, 1time Airline CEO, has today said that the airline has not filed for liquidation, and that it has just “suspended our services as an airline.”

Somebody should get hold of Richard Branson and let him know that if he feels like dropping a few quid this Christmas, he could get himself a fleet of planes.

Komani today further lamented the airline’s financial woes commenting that the South African airline industry was not a level playing field.

He also said that the government’s cash injection to SAA had made things difficult for his company that was already under business rescue.

We were in business rescue and the business rescue process took too long for us. On Friday last week, we made a call to suspend our services. We have not filed for liquidation, we have suspended our services as an airline. All of us need capital injections and as private airlines, ourselves and Comair, we share pain.

The 1time website stated differently however and still carried the words “1time Airline has applied for business liquidation” today.

The National Consumer Commission (NCC) is considering probing if 1time for selling tickets just hours before everything happened last week.

The JSE will also launch its own investigation into the fact that 1time may have breached the JSE’s listing requirements after news of it “filing for liquidation became public knowledge before a Stock Exchange News Service announcement could be made.”

Komani welcomed this:

Well this is what the JSE says it would investigate, let us see what they come out with, but most importantly the investigation is more than welcomed. At the moment we feel like we did whatever we had to do in terms of operating under Sens requirements and with business rescue.

There are still 1time passengers stranded in Zanzibar, but the banks have come out in support thus far saying that they will reimburse customers for card transactions, although those that paid with cash may have a harder time getting their money back.

[Source: EWN]