Nationwide airlines has been placed under provisional liquidation, an attorney for the company said on Wednesday.

"We applied yesterday (Tuesday) at 3pm and were placed under provisional liquidation. It is not yet in final liquidation," said Haroon Maher.

"There is a possibility that the company can go out of liquidation in a way which is not prejudicial to employees and creditors," he said.

This initial process by the Johannesburg High Court-appointed provisional liquidator would take six weeks.

The company would meet on Wednesday afternoon to discuss what to do about passengers and refunds and hoped to make an announcement on this on Wednesday evening or on Thursday.

"We are busy working on that at the moment," he said.

The provisional liquidator would also deal with staff matters.

Maher said that since the news broke, he had received four calls from parties interested in buying the airline, which announced that it had ceased operations on Tuesday due to cash flow problems.

"There are a lot of interested parties," he said.