DEFENDING THE TOURISM INDUSTRY

THE MAIN PILLAR OF OUR ECONOMY

Air Seychelles Domestic:
Last week we again received a lot of positive feedback. We appreciate all your views and as yourselves, we remain Seychellois, and we only want to see our Tourism Industry flourish for the benefit of our country. We agree with all the points put forward by all our readers and in the coming weeks we shall bring them out in our articles.

We also thank the Air Seychelles employees who have written in with their own views and discontent about the happenings at our national airline. We sympathize with you all and we feel for you. Things will change as we get the country to bring our airline to become truly Seychellois once again. So bear with us and spread the news for everyone to read this weekly column. It is in your interest and for Seychelles that we have taken up this noble task.

As promised, this week we want to touch on the domestic sector of Air Seychelles. Simply put - what a disaster! Every predecessor of Capt David Savy managed to make a success of that sector, so much so that it paid for the bulk of the expenses of Air Seychelles’ international sector. So what went wrong along the way under the captain’s watch?

Before the creation of Air Seychelles, we had two domestic airlines namely Air Mahe and Inter Island Airways. They had local Seychellois investors with skilled and experienced local staff. These companies were profitable and in direct competition with each other operating islander and trilander aircrafts. The service was impeccable, with timely schedules and friendly staff who were well paid and fully dedicated. These companies were hungry for business and they were just simply well run. The competition ensured that they were constantly improving and innovating their services and products. The clients had a choice. Tickets for the flights were sold on Mahe, Praslin and even La Digue. It was no other than professional Seychellois running these domestic airlines.

What do we see today? More than 37 years later, a Mauritian CEO is heading our airline and the once profitable domestic airline which has a monopoly is losing money. It is no longer the cash cow that subsidized the other operations of the airline. With the bulging head office expenses and fat salaries of the top echelons of its management including its executive chairman David Savy and his Mauritian CEO (and that of his wife because she is also now employed by Air Seychelles!), the domestic sector’s profitability is being forfeited. Coupled with old dilapidated planes that break down on a daily basis, huge overheads and very unreliable schedules, the Air Seychelles domestic has simply lost its way. Passengers have shunned this lousy service and opted for a more reliable maritime ferry service.

We need to take our hat off to the capable Seychellois men and women who were pioneering domestic air travel at Air Mahe and Inter Island Airways many moons ago. Please come back and take over Air Seychelles and let us show real Seychellois administration and entrepreneurship at work.

We did not need a pilot to make it work in those days; we did not need a Doctor Professor coming from Mauritius to make it function as a professional and profitable business. We just needed plain dedicated common sense and business acumen. The managers were focused on their business and gave it their undivided attention. They were not involved in other side businesses or sitting on other boards to increase their salary & bonuses package.

The popular reaction in the country today is to separate the domestic airline from the international sector. Two competing companies are necessary because that will immediately turn our domestic airline into a profitable company and will stop David Savy and his Mauritian CEO from bleeding Seychellois and our tourists with exorbitant prices for the 15 minutes flight from Mahe and Praslin. We have so many highly skilled and qualified Seychellois administrators who can manage that small airline with great success. Why should our country continue to let the Board of Air Seychelles pass over all these failures? They need to hand over the management structures of Air Seychelles to the people of Seychelles. This current deplorable situation cannot continue and President Michel will be judged by his actions in this existing scenario. A scenario where he seems to be powerless. A situation whereby every Seychellois taxpayer is being forced to subsidize the large salaries of the upper crust of the airline’s management including the Mauritian CEO & his wife of Air Seychelles. We can no longer accept such lousy management. It is a sad state of affairs…

The staff of Air Seychelles Domestic must be involved in the decision making of Air Seychelles. How many knew that their small operation was being made to subsidize the main operation of Air Seychelles? As David Savy and his Mauritian CEO will soon be moving to spanking new BIG offices at the airport, the Domestic Airline staff continues to operate in tight quarters. Is that fair? How long will they continue to be the poor little handicapped child of the airline?

We repeat our call for a total restructure of the Air Seychelles operation. We do not need a Mauritian CEO & his wife on fat salaries after all these years of operation. Nor do we need a chairman with an astronomical pay package with a ‘genius complex’ calling the wayward shots. Maurice Loustau-Lalanne, Conrad Benoiton and Freddy Karkaria did not need a Mauritian (or foreign) CEO when they were in charge of Air Seychelles. And they did not make deals to take Mauritians from London and fly them to Mauritius at cheaper fares than Seychellois or tourists to our country were paying. Let us all open our eyes and press for the much needed changes at Air Seychelles.

Next week we shall be taking up complaints from the inhabitants of Praslin and La Digue on the entrance fees at the Valle de Mai and at L'Union Estate. These articles we are publishing in our bid to protect our country's tourism industry. Please join us in our mission and help spread these articles to friends.