Today, Nationwide Airlines announced that they have stopped operating until further notice. This news has come as a shock to many travelers who had already booked flights with the airline and are now left stranded. Nationwide’s CEO, Vernon Bricknell said, “Our cash-flow has become critical and as a result have decided to voluntarily cease all flight operations until further notice.” It seems like Nationwide can not stay out of the news ever since November 7 last year when the airline had one of is airplanes engine fall off on take-off on a flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Later on in the same month, the airline had its fleet grounded by the South African Civil Aviation Authority as some of the fleets aircraft were deemed not fit to fly.

But if one looks at Nationwides decision to stop flying; you have to think that most if not all airlines are struggling to operate under the current economic conditions. Just today, British Airways was announcing that it was going to have to increase its fares due to the ever rising oil prices. Now if big airlines like this are struggling, what more the smaller operators such as Nationwide? The price of fuel not only in South Africa is rising almost daily and the airlines need to factor in these rises as they can not do without fuel.

Looking across the board of airlines in South Africa, one can not say there are many doing exceptionally well. Recently I did a search for flights from Cape Town to Johannesburg and browsed through all the so called low cost airlines for their rates and I reached the conclusion that there is no such thing as a low cost airline anymore in South Africa. All the fares were relatively high with these airlines and I had to settle for flying with the national carrier, South African Airways (SAA) as they offered me the best deal for that particular day. In the past, flying SAA was deemed to be very expensive compared to the low cost airlines but they now all seem to be offering the same fares. It is not long ago when the low cost airline Mango started operating and everyone in South Africa thought that air travel within South Africa would be affordable for most due to the emergence of this airline. But as with any business, Mango came onto the scene with a bang and charging next to nothing for flights but as time has gone on they have had to review their strategy and now their flights are not as cheap as they used to be.

The rising fuel prices and interest rates are not helping many businesses today and many businesses are shutting down on a daily basis and Nationwide is no exception. Maybe there are other reasons we are not aware of that forced them to stop operating. Reports also suggest that Nationwide were trying to secure investment by a black empowerment consortium but that has not materialised.

Where to now for Nationwide? The fleet seems to have touched down and chances are slim for there to be a ‘cabin crew cross check’ on a Nationwide flight anytime soon.

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