CemAir Marks 20 Years Of Growth, Overcoming Challenges

South African regional airline CemAir is celebrating two decades in business after transforming from a small charter operator into an airline with a fleet of more than 30 aircraft, overcoming regulatory challenges and the COVID-19 pandemic to enter a new phase of expansion.

And the airline may be unique in that it’s run by a husband-and-wife team: Miles and Laura van der Molen.

In 2006, CemAir started operations with a focus on supporting the oil, gas and mining industries with specialist charters. The company then recognized the opportunities to grow into a regional airline connecting places overlooked by carriers such as the state-owned SA Express.

The post-pandemic years have seen a strong recovery as CemAir and competitor Airlink took advantage of the route development opportunities presented by the demise of SA Express and the grounding of SAA while under business rescue.

Miles told Aviation Week, “Having IOSA certification gives us the ability to interline and codeshare with many airlines without the necessity of detailed inspections. And it also helps us keep up to date with the latest audit processes.”

The airline’s development is now driven by strategic partnerships. CemAir is expanding by growing interline agreements with airlines such as Air Europa, Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines. In February 2026, CemAir concluded a codeshare agreement with state-owned competitor South African Airways.

In 2018 CemAir was grounded for ten months, until the Appeal Court found that the South African Civil Aviation Authority had been ‘irrational, arbitrary and procedurally unfair.’

The grounding threatened not only the company’s financial survival but its reputation. Thanks to their contract revenue stream, they survived that crisis. For Miles, the airline’s survival and restoring its name was nonnegotiable. Even if he chose to exit aviation afterward, he would not allow what he believed to be unlawful actions to define his life’s work. He says, “To quit then would have meant giving up the business on a low point—commercially and reputationally.” 

Laura, a medical doctor with an MBA, left a career in banking to join her husband in the then start-up airline. She recalls, “After sleepless nights, every morning Miles and I would spend two hours before work strategizing how to deal with the grounding.”

Sharing the load and working in tandem was critical, Miles adds. “We are quite similar in our management styles and our commitment to getting the job done. The only real difference is that Laura is fantastic at details. She can analyze a complex spreadsheet, right down to the most elaborate formula—whereas I have a more high-level approach to the business.”