While some are questioning the future of 1time Airline, the low-cost carrier is looking beyond South Africa’s border for new opportunities.

Blacky Komani, 1time CEO, told Tourism Update the airline was in the final stages of negotiations for a regional deal that would change the face of 1time. He said the agreements had been finalised and the airline was now in the process of allocating aircraft.

TU received a tip-off from a reader that 1time was looking into serving the Zimbabwe domestic market but Komani would only say Zimbabwe was one of the countries the airline had been considering. He remained tight-lipped about the details of the regional deal and said he would be ready to reveal more information by June 29.

Regional expansion is part of Komani's turnaround strategy to return 1time to profit by 2014. He says margins outside South Africa are far higher and the market is much less congested. Gillian Saunders, Principal of consulting firm Grant Thornton, agrees that high airport taxes and crippling fuel costs in South Africa are creating a very difficult climate for low-cost carriers, who are already struggling with extremely tight margins. She adds that fares are also being pushed to an all-time low by stifling competition. “One of the options for low-cost carriers is to look regionally, and this is what 1time is doing.”

This comes after an announcement by 1time that it was withdrawing from Lanseria, just three months after it finally obtained the rights to fly from the airport.

Concerns about the future of the airline were raised as the announcement came only days after its shares plummeted from 14 cents to two cents. Although this drop was highly unusual and the stocks almost immediately rebounded, 1time’s shares have continued on a downward spiral for the last few weeks. They gradually dropped from 17 cents on May 26 to eight cents on June 5.

Dorine Reinstein