A Fly540 plane at the Julius Nyerere International Airport, Dar es
Salaam, on December 1, 2017, on its inaugural flight. The airline has
stopped operations to Juba airport over a protracted landing fees row.
PHOTO | DIANA NGILA | NATION
South Sudan has stopped operations of Kenyan airline Fly540 at
Juba airport over a protracted landing fees row, leaving travellers with
only two direct flights between Nairobi and Juba.
Things came to a head on Tuesday August 14, when a Fly540 flight with 40 passengers on board left Nairobi for Juba at 4:45pmw.
With a flight time of one hour and 35 minutes, the passengers expected to land at 6:20pm. But this was not to be.
Barely
half an hour into the flight, the pilot was informed by the airline’s
Juba airport manager that he no longer had landing rights, forcing him
to fly back to Nairobi.
“We were surprised when the
airline had to turn back almost half an hour into the flight. We were
told that the South Sudan government had denied it entry. We were
further informed that the airline had cancelled all its flights to Juba,
hence our refunds would be processed given that the airline staff could
not tell when they would be getting back the landing rights,” an
affected passenger told The EastAfrican.
Apparently,
unbeknown to Fly540 staff at Juba airport, the South Sudan government
had cancelled the landing rights for the carrier earlier that day, over
what it called "accumulated landing fees." It is now two weeks since the
airline suspended its operations in Juba.
“The Fly540 Juba airport manager only discovered this
(cancellation) when he went to file the flight plan with Juba’s civil
aviation authority. He learned that the authority’s director-general had
issued an internal memo suspending the airline's landing rights,” a
source with knowledge of the developments told The EastAfrican.
The
cancellation of landing rights was a culmination of a protracted back
and forth between the management of Fly540, South Sudan’s national
security intelligence, the Ministry of Interior and the civil aviation
agency, since April.
Fraud
The EastAfrican
has learned that on April 16, the South Sudan administration asked
Fly540 to temporarily stop paying its landing fees following discovery
of fraud within the civil aviation agency. Some of the agency's staff
members were suspended from work and arrested.
“This
was an active investigation and the airline complied with the
instructions. However, the suspended staff from the aviation authority
kept threatening the airline's Juba staff, which saw it seek protection
services from Juba police,” The EastAfrican was told.
On
August 7, the Fly540 management was surprised to receive a letter from
Juba's Intelligence agency (NISS) requesting payment of $27,000.
The letter asked that the money be given to some of the Intelligence agency employees who were in Nairobi on assignment.
“The
Fly540 management asked for a letter from the civil aviation agency to
support the request. This was, however, met with another demand letter
now from South Sudan’s Interior Ministry on the same day, demanding
payment of the full arrears, which had clocked $123, 000,” The EastAfrican was told.
The
Fly540 management offered a payment plan, but this was declined. It is
understood that South Sudan security officers on the same day raided the
airline's Juba office and held staff hostage, demanding the payment.
“An
agreement was reached that the airline would pay $50,000 upfront and
the Juba office released $28,300 to the South Sudanese officials, upon
which the staff members were released, with a promise to pay the balance
in cash via a flight from Nairobi,” The EastAfrican was told.
It is understood that the aircraft, which was turned away on Tuesday last week, had the balance on board.
“The
matter of fraud is still an active investigation. The airline has no
problem settling the arrears but is questioning the process because it
is being bombarded by unethical requests from different agencies. It is
something the Kenyan government and embassies are well aware of and are
trying to resolve,” a source with knowledge of the matter said.
Discussions
It
is understood that Fly540 and the Juba civil aviation agency have been
in discussions since the suspension but nothing concrete has come out of
the discussions.
The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority director general, Captain Gilbert Kibe, confirmed to The EastAfrican that his office was aware of the matter.
“Yes
this is something that has been brought to my attention and we are
investigating the issues they (Fly540) are having. I don’t think I will
comment beyond that,” Captain Kibe said.
William
Mwadime, a Kenyan consular official at the Kenyan Embassy in Juba
confirmed that his office had reached out to the Juba authorities to try
to resolve the matter.
“We had an informal session
with Fly540 Juba management over the issue in the week of their flight
suspension. We told them to file a formal letter on their concerns,
which they did on Thursday. This was then shared with the Juba
authorities and we expect feedback from them on Tuesday,” Mr Mwadime
said.
South Sudan, however, maintain that the decision
to cancel landing rights was taken after the airline went into default
on the payment of its landing fees, which according to Juba authorities
had accumulated ‘significantly’.
“You can seek the
amount and default period from the airline management. What we want is
these unpaid fees settled so that they can continue with their normal
frequencies to Juba,” an official at the South Sudan Civil Aviation
Authority, who requested anonymity said.
Fly540, which
operates two daily flights to Juba, suspended its services in July 2016
when the fresh fighting broke out, citing the deteriorating security
situation.
The Nairobi-Juba route is now served by two
daily direct flights by Kenya Airways, with RwandAir making a stop-over
at Entebbe and Ethiopian Airline going through Addis Ababa.
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