New details surrounding the departure of 1time’s original founders, Glenn Orsmond, Rodney James and Michael Kaminski have emerged, raising more questions about what actually happened at 1time and who’s to blame for the carrier’s demise.
An article that appeared in Business Day entitled ‘BEE blamed for 1time’s demise’, stated that 1time founders had put all the blame for its failure on the BEE consortium, backed by IDC funding, which bought a 25% stake in the company in March 2011. It said the strategies and vision of the founders were reportedly clashing with those of the inexperienced BEE consortium, and the funding – expected to be used for new, more fuel-efficient B737-300s – would not be used to purchase aircraft.
Rodney told TNW: “It is unfortunate the [Business Day] article had such a strong weighting against the 1time BEE partners. We had preferred not to discuss issues of our past and 1time’s demise, however there was a report on Jetworx compiled by Solidarity, which implicated the founders of 1time, along with Blacky Komani’s management team.” He says his comments were given as feedback to the claims Solidarity made, fingering the founding members as being partially responsible for 1time’s failure.
In a statement to TNW, Glenn, Rodney and Michael said: “Glenn presented the Board with a five-point plan to restore viability in the high oil and taxes environment. This involved improving aircraft utilisation, optimising the schedule, growing ancillary revenue, reducing overheads and reducing headcount. Unfortunately the new team took the worst possible approach – they reduced capacity while simultaneously increasing overheads.”
According to the three founders, the new controlling shareholders made it uncomfortable for the founding members to remain on board as part of the executive team. “The Jetworx Board was dissolved and the entire airline executive team [including Rodney and Michael] was removed.” When Glenn, and later Rodney and Michael, left 1time, they claimed their exits were planned and that they had confidence in the remaining management team. However, Rodney has explained that the founding members lost board control and that Glenn resigned soon after his presentation for a new executive team and structure were rejected.
For more on this story refer to TNW April 3.
