State-owned Mango appears to be a step closer to the skies again, four years after the low-cost airline was grounded in July 2021.
Image: Karen Sandison / Independent Newspapers
The business rescue practitioner (BRP) of Mango has announced that the state-owned low-cost airline is a step closer to resuming its operations four years after it was grounded.
Chartered accountant Sipho Sono has indicated that Mango Airlines is currently in the final stages of concluding a transaction with the selected investor that will help restart operations for the first time since July 2021.
“As part of this process, we need to confirm the value of unflown tickets that were purchased but not used and vouchers that were previously issued but could not be used, as a result of the suspension of Mango’s operations when it entered business rescue,” he said on Thursday.
Mango passengers who bought tickets and paid in full but could not fly due to its suspension of operations have been notified that, should the transaction with the investor be concluded successfully, they will receive a voucher equal to the value of their previous unused ticket value, which will be usable when the airline resumes flights.
However, if the transaction with the potential investor is unsuccessful, tickets will be treated as a creditor claim in the business rescue process, and passengers will receive a dividend payout that will cover a portion of their total ticket/voucher value.
Sono urged passengers to verify their details on the airline’s website, whose verification portal opened on Wednesday, June 4, 2025, and is scheduled to close on September 1, 2025.
He warned that submissions received after the September 1 deadline will not be accepted and that failure to submit information for verification within the stipulated period will result in the forfeiture of unflown tickets or vouchers.
In addition, passengers who purchased their tickets but did not fly when Mango was operating, which was before July 26, 2021, are not eligible for the verification process.
According to Sono, this category of passengers has already been refunded through their credit card providers, banks, travel agents, or other third parties.
In the airline’s last status report, the BRP stated that the execution of the sale of shares agreement by its parent company, SA Airways (SAA), remained outstanding.
Sono formally communicated in April and emphasised the urgency of finalising and signing the agreement, which was originally submitted to SAA in November 2022.
“In the absence of a response, the BRP’s legal team sent a follow-up letter on May 2, 2025, formally demanding a reply from SAA regarding the agreement within 14 calendar days from receipt of the correspondence.
“The letter also stressed that any further delays in finalising the agreement could jeopardise the successful implementation of the business rescue plan, which SAA has already approved,” he explained.
The National Consumer Commission (NCC) has previously been forced to abandon its investigation into another local low-cost airline, 1time, which operated between 2004 and 2012, after a failed business rescue process and then filed for liquidation and grounded all flights.
A probe was initiated by the NCC into 1time’s conduct to determine whether the airline continued selling tickets until hours before it announced the grounding of its fleet and if it had in fact misled customers (through omission) by continuing to sell tickets to consumers fully aware that they would not deliver service.
The commission also wanted to establish what arrangements the airline had made to reimburse or make good to customers who had bought tickets, but due to liquidation, the investigation was closed.
loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za