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Cape Town - The grounding of Skywise airlines on Wednesday has sparked a backlash from Fin24 users with festive season bookings, as many are concerned about whether they would be getting refunds.
Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) suspended all the flights of the low-cost airline as from December 2 due to unpaid airport charges for landing, take off, parking of aircraft and related service charges.
Acsa said the suspension would be withdrawn as soon as Skywise made appropriate payments in accordance with the relevant regulations.
Meanwhile Skywise promised disgruntled passengers that they would be back to offer a much better service.
“We apologise and appeal to all affected passengers during this difficult time. We have highly inconvenienced our customers but promise them that we will be back to offer a much better flying service”, said Tabassum Qadir, Skywise co-chairperson.
Skywise said the suspension would affect 8 000 passengers that booked to fly with them over the festive season.
Fin24 user Nawaaz Mahomed's entire festive season vacation has been jeopardised by the Skywise grounding.
He writes: "I am currently booked with Skywise on 26 December 2015 to Cape Town for vacation. After reading all the chaos that’s going on, I question, will I get a refund? Will I get to my holiday destination? My ticket, hotel, car rental and other relevant leisure (activities) were booked and paid for 3 months ago.
"I do not have money to book a flight with Kulula, which is almost triple the price while Mango's being sold out. This is frustrating and has caused high levels stress for individuals including myself.
"It would be sad to see such a company fail so hard during peak season, all the travellers stranded and employees left jobless. I do hope someone can bail Skywise out of trouble and help with the R8m, which is not a lot of money realistically speaking."
Selected user letters sum up the frustration.
Fin24 user Diana Fourie's holiday plans are also being thrown in disarray: "We have our flights booked with Skywise for 24 December 2015 and return 4 January 2016. We have no idea what to do or expect? Will we be fully refunded?
If so, when will that happen? What must we do? Our plans have been set in place, with regards to accommodation etc. We cannot afford buying new tickets from another airline now - or changing any of our holiday plans. I wish we could get answers, any answers would be appreciated."
Other users wrote:
Dawn De Villiers: "We booked four tickets for March next year for a wedding, got two bridesmaids and mother of bride on the flight. Can't get through to Skywise, phones are off. I paid the R25 insurance - what are my chances of getting a refund?"
Hazel Fouche: "We had tickets booked to fly to Cape Town tomorrow and have had to get last minute booking with another airline. Luckily there were some tickets still available!"
Eugene Swart: "Ticket with Skywise has been booked to return from Johannesburg on the 20th for my mother, now I don’t know if I should cancel this booking and with that money buy another ticket? Ticket prices are increasing by the hour and I know less about Skywise now than I did this morning (Tuesday). A little bit frustrating to say the least. Should they resume after today’s debacle, I will for certain not be making use of them in the near future."
Ryan Ferreira: "Skywise Disaster – Booked last night at 23h00 for flights on the 19th December 2015 now have had to booked on another airline as Skywise cannot be trusted. Had to spend an additional R4 000 to get flights with another airline. Who knows if we will be refunded!"
Thulane Kubheka: "I'm a devastated customer right now who has booked with Skywise we urge the government to not intervene at the busiest time of the year - disturbing our plans. It's very worrying, what are we going to do now? All the airlines are fully booked for our dates".
Hilary du Plessis had some useful advice for customers who paid using a credit card and advised them to do a "callback". "This has happened to me before and I got refunded in full," she said.
On Thursday Skywise appealed to all affected passengers to be patient and said the company was working hard to ensure that all refund processes were completed as soon as possible.
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Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on Fin24 have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views of users published on Fin24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.
