Local carrier Silverstone Air is at the edge of collapsing, two months after unending woes and is speculated to close operations in Kenya.
The troubled airline has not yet resumed operations since November 12, 2019, following a temporary ban by the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) over continuous technical and mechanical catastrophes.
The airline was also at the verge of loosing planes over breach of leasing contract that forced it to issue notice of recovery.
Kahawa Tungu had learnt that a firm identified as Elix Aviation Capital in Ireland, managed by Oaktree Capital Management was targeting to recover a fleet of eight aircraft that Silverstone had been using to keep afloat.
Read: Troubled Silverstone Air Now Risks Losing Planes Over Breach Of Contract
“Following the KCAA’s decision to suspend our Dash 8 fleet, we are temporarily suspending all scheduled services,” Silverstone Air management said on November 12.
It also issued a notice of redundancy for its staff citing the decision by the KCAA to ground its operations hence paralyzing passenger services.
“This has resulted in irreparable damage to the company’s brand equity as evidenced by mass cancellations of tickets. The company cannot, therefore, continue to operate commercially. We assure you that the step the company has taken has no relation to matters of your individual productivity, ” said Silverstone.
The management indicated that the suspension intensely affected the company operations as they were forced to cancel tickets and the commercial sector was also not favoured.
In addition, they sent home 17 pilots as well as staff and engineers after the woes escalated as at December last year.
“Only seven pilots have been left at Silverstone. All the rest were declared redundant,” disclosed a former pilot in the airline.
Regarding the recovery mission, a report published by the Star indicated that the airline had been in a back and forth with the owners of the fleet for some time hence making the recovery efforts futile.
The ban was lifted on November 19, 2019 and the airline is yet to resume its operations sending signals that it could be working on closing the business in Kenya.
The airline flew from Wilson Airport to Kisumu, Mombasa, Lamu, Eldoret, Malindi, Lodwar and Ukunda.
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