Struggling to get a refund for

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Struggling to get a refund for your Mango Airlines ticket? Try this

While passengers are still uncertain about the status of Mango Airlines, leaders in the travel industry shared their advice on how to get a possible refund for your ticket.

Struggling to get a refund for

Image: Canva

With on and off again announcements since late April 2021, and domestic flight schedules only loaded until 8 May 2021, many are wondering about the future of Mango Airlines in South Africa.

In April, Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) suspended the carrier’s flights due to non-payment from the government (South African Airways and The Department of Public Enterprises).

Passengers struggling to get refund from Mango

At the time, some passengers managed to find alternative means to reach their destinations, others found themselves stranded at airports across the country, with their hopes pinned on the airline.

Now, many passengers are taking to social media to speak about their frustrations with getting a refund.

“Kindly issue a refund as soon as possible as I don’t want to use your services ever again after this experience,” one social media user wrote in the comments of their official Twitter account. Mango went on to reassure passengers via Twitter that they will continue to operate.

How to get a possible refund from Mango airlines

Tourism Update spoke to the CEO of the Association of Southern African Travel Agents (Asata), Otto de Vries who recommended that those who had been affected by non-delivery of services should apply to their credit card companies for chargebacks at the earliest possible time.

He also cautioned agents and passengers to proceed carefully in relation to new bookings, saying that Mango had made a clear announcement that it was in financial difficulties and may move into business rescue in the near future.

The uncertainty surrounding Mango’s status

Meanwhile, the CEO of the regional carrier, Airlink, Rodger Foster, agreed with this view, saying that despite Mango having restarted its domestic operations this week, they suspect that the already nervous public will have been spooked by the uncertainty surrounding Mango’s status and its ability to fly people where they want to go and when.

“As Airlink – which competes with Mango on the main domestic routes – continues to demonstrate, customers appreciate reliability and predictability along with affordability,” he added. 

Last year, Airlink told Travel News that it was looking at investing in Mango.  When asked if this was still on the cards, Foster said while Airlink had since moved in different directions it was always open to options that would consolidate airline operations for the purpose of long-term viability and sustainability. 

An unstable industry

“The industry is currently unsustainable. In such a crisis one would expect to see some carriers exit and also some consolidation in the industry, but as long as the market is skewed by governments recapitalising entities which repeatedly fall over, we will never achieve true sustainability.  It would be far better if governments set and enforced the rules without being a competitor at the same time.  This would allow market forces to compete, promote efficiencies and fill any gaps that may exist,” said Foster. 

Competing head-to-head

What’s more, Independent Business Rescue Practitioner and Aviation Economist, Dr Joachim Vermooten said it was odd that Mango had made the decision to suspend a lucrative regional monopoly like its Zanzibar route but to retain all of its domestic routes in a highly competitive local aviation industry.

This essentially means that Mango and South Africa Airways (SAA) will be competing head-to-head on many of the same routes in the domestic aviation market.

“Just before SAA entered business rescue, it was understood that Mango would take over SAA’s domestic routes at which time Mango would increase the scope of its activities to 14 aircraft, which was significantly more than the four aircraft on which it was launched,” Vermooten told the publication. “However, SAA’s business rescue plan stated that SAA’s restart would include a broad scope of activities including inter-continental, domestic and African regional flights as well as small narrow-bodies, also referred to as cross-over aircraft, of the nature operated by Airlink and Cemair.

“This would imply that two competing state-owned domestic airlines, backed by an unlimited amount of government funding would be competing head-to-head on many of the same routes in the domestic aviation market, which is in any case overtraded due to low demand post COVID19. Surely, this would not be a sustainable way for the government to approach the current situation,” he added.