DEFENDING THE TOURISM INDUSTRY

THE MAIN PILLAR OF OUR ECONOMY

AIRPORT HANDLING THROUGH AVIATION SEYCHELLES
Today the Seychelles Airport has Air Seychelles handling its operational facilities. Long ago this service was handled by another company called Aviation Seychelles. It was efficient, independent and it made money. ASL Group did us proud, serving all airlines landing here with the same care and attention with no special interest in one airline over another. Everyone had the same treatment with the interest of Seychelles as its guiding mission. No complaints were received and all airlines were very satisfied with the Seychelles airport operations and services. Unfortunately we cannot claim the same feedback today…

It is therefore vital for us to relook at the current scenario as there are numerous complaints from the other carriers who feel that they are not being serviced as they should. Some are even looking at the possibility of positioning an entire operational team to look after their flights. The airport handling is not up to scratch and it is important to review the situation in order to provide a more efficient service that is independent of the national carrier.

Air Seychelles is not in a position to deliver the best services as it is in a very precarious situation. It currently needs and injection of capital from government (taxpayers) for its survival. So instead of looking at its operating costs and large overheads it is conveniently being bailed out. The airline has a huge salary burden for its army of non- Seychellois management team (CEO & wife, marketing director, Paris office with at least 5 foreigners). We gather that the CEO (Rajiv Brisseur) is on a monthly salary of US$ 10,000 plus perks. And yet, there is no designated understudy to this Mauritian who has been in the post for several years. This indeed makes a mockery of the government’s policies to localize all posts while at the same time it lays off workers under the voluntary departure scheme. There is no doubt that these expats are responsible for the big black hole of Air Seychelles. It is the one hole that no amount of profit can fill. Government needs to OBLIGE Air Seychelles to localize these positions, all of them, if they expect the country to follow suit. What is Minister Mondon doing about that? How many companies have to comply with employment of small fish while the big whales are simply ignored and protected? We often hear of the proportion of Seychellois staff working in Air Seychelles, but let us look at the value of the salaries of the dozen or so foreigners versus the hundreds of Seychellois. Why leave only the crumbs for the Seychellois when the whole bread is being taken from under our nose by those most fortunate?

Our dependence on foreigners in these management positions at Air Seychelles constitutes an about turn to the colonial days – we have indeed gone back in time! Government needs to allow a new structure to move in at the airport and provide a service that is independent from all airlines landing here. We need airlines to feel welcome here. We cannot defend the point that Air Seychelles is playing with the services it is providing to give itself an edge instead on working to improve its standards to earn the edge it needs with which to compete. It is a well known fact today for example that Air Seychelles will not operate domestic flights to connect with early departures of Emirates and Qatar flights. This is a sad situation as the domestic flights are operated only when there are Air Seychelles flights. It is detrimental to the destination as a whole as it is a very short sighted vision.

We are also receiving many complaints on the UK flights by both Seychellois and tourists. Is that really the Creole Spirit? We are begging President James Michel to experience that run between Seychelles to London. You will never want to experience it twice.

The staff on board have our sympathy, because they are in the front line and have to receive all the anger from passengers who are frustrated with the food on offer, with the entertainment system that does not work and with having to bear being on a flight working to bring tourists and Mauritians to Mauritius instead of to Seychelles.

FAIR TRADINGCOMMISSION NEEDS TO ACT
The time has come for our Fair Trading Commission to get involved and examine the disparity in the price of air tickets to Mauritius (two and a half hours more than Seychelles) when compared to the cost of flights to Seychelles. This has resulted in numerous complaints by Seychellois travelling on that flight to London, but worst still it is also a bone of contention that every tourism operator has - it is cheaper for tourists to go to Mauritius on Air Seychelles than to hop out here in Seychelles.

We can set the scene for the Fair Trading Commission. There is Mauritian Company in London that sells tickets on Air Seychelles to Mauritians and tourists to travel via Seychelles and connect for another two and a half hour flight again on Air Seychelles to Mauritius. The flights to Mauritius are cheaper than the flights to Seychelles. Is there any logic in that? Is Air Seychelles looking at the Seychelles economy or are they too bothered with taking care of the Mauritius economy? This is such a sad state of affairs and the authorities need to get involved to put some order back into this madness.