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DENIS Coghlan is not a man suffering from a shortage of ideas. In 1977 he started a trucking company called Denco, and built roads and civil works under TPR Botswana “until the Chinese contractors came in and took over”.
However, he really hit the limelight with his recent attempts to get Kalahari Airways off the ground and flying the Cape Town to London (Gatwick) via Gaborone route.
Among the plans to make money from the route are resuscitating the ostrich and cut flower industries which “collapsed due to severe restrictions placed by the South African authorities on transporting fresh agricultural products in transit”, to exporting chilled beef to the European Union and getting execs in the Rustenburg platinum mining belt to drive to Gaborone for their London flights, rather than to OR Tambo.
The aircraft he has in mind aren’t the brand new super fuel efficient jets the likes of SAA and Comair are purchasing; instead, Denis has his eye on several Boeing B744s which are sitting in storage in the California desert.
The 744s belong to Qantas which retired them after taking delivery of Airbus A380s, and Denis wants to buy them.
To his detractors who say that the planes aren’t fuel efficient, Denis says: “A used 744 @ $200k per month lease purchase cost plus $2k per hour for maintenance and an extra 0.02c per seat km for fuel is a no-brainer against a new A380 @ $2m per month lease cost plus reserves.”
Initially Denis wants to buy three B744s, and then the “long range plan is to own 20 or more 744s within five years, half of which will be marketed on wet lease. I will be targeting airlines such as SAA and Virgin who are stuck with near worthless A340s for the next five years.”
Earlier this year an attempt to purchase the first B747-400 from Qantas failed. “The deputy CEO of a major SA-owned bank in Botswana reneged on their previously stated intention to provide some of the finance if the BDC approved my funding,” said Denis.
He is now negotiating with a second bank to obtain the financing required.
To offer investors a more secure deal, the planes will be owned by a stand-alone company, and dry-leased to Kalahari Airways (what this means is that if Kalahari Airways goes bankrupt, those who own the planes won’t lose them as they belong to a different company).
To raise publicity/funding, Denis tried his luck at crowdsourcing, a highly unorthodox way to raise money for an airline. The crowdsourcing - on a site called Indiegogo - raised no money, but gained Denis some publicity which he hopes will help find somebody to fund the purchase of the aircraft Kalahari Airways needs.
Denis is now in discussion with another bank to secure the lease purchase financing, again with an offer from the Botswana Development Corporation to co-finance.
The airline’s five-year projection has it flying to London in the first year, adding Hong Kong in the second year, New York in the third, Paris in the fourth and Frankfurt in the fifth year of operation.
The chief operating officer designate of Kalahari Airways is a former COO of Velvet Sky, and a former technical director of Virgin Atlantic is the CEO designate.
This is not the first airline which has thrown the word “Kalahari” into its name and to be clear, Kalahari Airways has no connection with Kalahari Air Services (the trading name of Air Charter Botswana) or the Kalahari Express in Namibia.
- Fin24
* Rob Baker is co-owner of South Africa Travel Online. Follow him on twitter on @southafricaTO.
However, he really hit the limelight with his recent attempts to get Kalahari Airways off the ground and flying the Cape Town to London (Gatwick) via Gaborone route.
Among the plans to make money from the route are resuscitating the ostrich and cut flower industries which “collapsed due to severe restrictions placed by the South African authorities on transporting fresh agricultural products in transit”, to exporting chilled beef to the European Union and getting execs in the Rustenburg platinum mining belt to drive to Gaborone for their London flights, rather than to OR Tambo.
The aircraft he has in mind aren’t the brand new super fuel efficient jets the likes of SAA and Comair are purchasing; instead, Denis has his eye on several Boeing B744s which are sitting in storage in the California desert.
The 744s belong to Qantas which retired them after taking delivery of Airbus A380s, and Denis wants to buy them.
To his detractors who say that the planes aren’t fuel efficient, Denis says: “A used 744 @ $200k per month lease purchase cost plus $2k per hour for maintenance and an extra 0.02c per seat km for fuel is a no-brainer against a new A380 @ $2m per month lease cost plus reserves.”
Initially Denis wants to buy three B744s, and then the “long range plan is to own 20 or more 744s within five years, half of which will be marketed on wet lease. I will be targeting airlines such as SAA and Virgin who are stuck with near worthless A340s for the next five years.”
Earlier this year an attempt to purchase the first B747-400 from Qantas failed. “The deputy CEO of a major SA-owned bank in Botswana reneged on their previously stated intention to provide some of the finance if the BDC approved my funding,” said Denis.
He is now negotiating with a second bank to obtain the financing required.
To offer investors a more secure deal, the planes will be owned by a stand-alone company, and dry-leased to Kalahari Airways (what this means is that if Kalahari Airways goes bankrupt, those who own the planes won’t lose them as they belong to a different company).
To raise publicity/funding, Denis tried his luck at crowdsourcing, a highly unorthodox way to raise money for an airline. The crowdsourcing - on a site called Indiegogo - raised no money, but gained Denis some publicity which he hopes will help find somebody to fund the purchase of the aircraft Kalahari Airways needs.
Denis is now in discussion with another bank to secure the lease purchase financing, again with an offer from the Botswana Development Corporation to co-finance.
The airline’s five-year projection has it flying to London in the first year, adding Hong Kong in the second year, New York in the third, Paris in the fourth and Frankfurt in the fifth year of operation.
The chief operating officer designate of Kalahari Airways is a former COO of Velvet Sky, and a former technical director of Virgin Atlantic is the CEO designate.
This is not the first airline which has thrown the word “Kalahari” into its name and to be clear, Kalahari Airways has no connection with Kalahari Air Services (the trading name of Air Charter Botswana) or the Kalahari Express in Namibia.
- Fin24
* Rob Baker is co-owner of South Africa Travel Online. Follow him on twitter on @southafricaTO.
