Jaffer Khan dreams of picking up his ninth medal at the Two Oceans Marathon in Cape Town next month.
|||Jaffer Khan dreams of picking up his ninth medal at the Two Oceans Marathon in Cape Town next month.
But the 49-year-old fears he may not make it to the starting line because he booked his flight to Cape Town via low-cost airline Velvet Sky.
The low-cost Durban based airline grounded all its flights until Monday, amid possible liquidation over unpaid fuel costs.
“I have trained hard for four months and was really looking forward to competing in the event, but now I’m worried I may not make it there,” he said.
Khan, who is from Joburg, said he had paid R2 500 for a return flight to Cape Town, but, when he asked for a refund from Velvet Sky, the airline did not respond.
Khan a also paid over R2 000 for accommodation and could now lose out on that as well.
“I’m not sure if I should stop training altogether.”
Hundreds of other Velvet Sky passengers were left fuming last week when scheduled departures were repeatedly delayed before the fleet was grounded.
Petrus Carstens, whose flight was cancelled last week, ended up paying for two flights.
“My flight had been cancelled last Thursday, but I was promised a flight the next day. Since I was sceptical whether Velvet Sky would take off I decided to book another flight on Kulula which cost me R800,” said Carstens. “However the Velvet Sky flight took off as expected but in the process I ended up losing R800.”
Several passengers took to the airline’s Facebook page this week to express their frustration after having missed flights last week.
Jaco le Roux said he was utterly disgusted by the airline.
“Given the recent turmoil, I contacted the Velvet Sky helpdesk to inquire whether flights would indeed take off on schedule on Monday (February 27).”
“The reason is that my wife had to fly to Johannesburg in order to catch a series of flights to New Zealand. Of course your highly uninformed staff member reassured us that your flights are back on schedule and that we had no reason to worry. We all know what the end result was. In the end we had to dock up another R3 700 to get a flight via Durban to Johannesburg on a reputable airline,” added Le Roux.
Attempts to get comment from Velvet Sky proved fruitless. - Sameer Naik
