Remember Rayani Air? Apparently, The Shariah-Compliant Airline Is Coming Back!

At least, that's what its founder Ravi Alagendrran's latest Facebook post claims.

In a Facebook post on 7 August, Sunday night, at 08:48pm, Ravi shared an image collage of a Rayani Air flight and himself in it, captioned: "We are coming back soon."

A the time of writing this story, the post had 2K Reactions and was shared more than 170 times with over 350 comments, most of them voicing their support to Ravi.

"Dear customers,

We apologise for being unable to refund ticket payments despite our best efforts.

With the withdrawal of ASL and AOC licenses, no investor wants to co-operate with us.

The one investor who had committed to transfer the funds by 31 July 2016 to process the refund has now unexpectedly withdrawn.

However, we are working hard for the DCA and MAVCOM to provide us with a second chance to operate. With this second chance, an investor will acquire ownership of the company (Rayani Air) with a new management team to improve service.

While we cannot promise a date as to when it can be done, be certain, though, our priority is our obligation to the customer.

We hope that you would be patient and not come to the (Rayani Air) office as our office will remain close in the near future. We will make an official announcement as soon as we get a positive news.

Thank you."

NOTE: The above is a Google translation of the original post, which was posted in BM.

The thing is, the "second chance" Ravi is talking about was actually reported by The Star Online a full two months ago in June this year, after the Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) and Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) had revoked Rayani Air's Air Service Licence (ASL) and Air Operator's Certificate (AOC). In fact, his above post in BM sounds very similar in tone and wording to what he said in June.

In its report, dated 13 June, The Star Online had quoted Ravi saying:

"The revocations came at the peak of our negotiations with investors for the acquisition of equity in Rayani Air in the realisation that the present owners and their management are no longer fit to revive the airline."

Back then, he had said the "qualified and strong management team" of its new investors would revive and manage Rayani Air "much better than us", adding that the revival of the airline is "vital" in resolving the impacts from its "financial illness", such as employees' salaries, ticket refunds, and other liabilities.

"To this end, Rayani Air will appeal to the MAVCOM and the DCA to give the second chance for a new investor to revive and manage the airline."

We will keep you posted as and when we find more about Rayani Air's comeback plan.