‘Get rid of it’
I do not believe we need a national liability like SAA in South Africa – it used to be profitable, its competitors are profitable and there must be huge mismanagement for it to be in the state it is in.
Get rid of it to someone who knows how to manage an airline.
Margrit Wolff, Mercury Freight.
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‘Downsize and privatise’
Downsize and privatise SAA. Although it will take longer to pay off the debt they have accumulated, they will not accumulate more debt and in the long run they will see SAA expand and become a sustainable carrier. By completely ridding the country of SAA there will be too much unpaid debt.
Gary Tobias, CFR Freight.
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‘Liquidate it’
That the country “needs” a national carrier is not the question.
How is it that Ethiopia as an African country can have overtaken SAA , an airline once respected internationally and a flagship of Africa?
Mismanagement, fraud and lack of financial discipline have led to the fall of a once proud operator.
Airline business clearly is a very specific operation and even some giants of the airline industry have suffered the embarrassment of failure. To name two of them, Alitalia and Swiss Air.
The fact that even when trade sanctions affected the country, SAA kept flying international routes as well as servicing local destinations. Was it astute management or government subsidies? We may never know, but obviously for some years the boardroom of SAA was incapable of the financial gymnastics required to manage an airline which had a proud track record.
The solution must lie in liquidating the company; those banks and other creditors will unfortunately have to accept the settlements offered as part of the commercial risks they took.
Thereafter, as in all previous examples, from the ashes will arise a phoenix, which will hopefully have learned the lessons of ill-discipline and poor selection of CEOs and management team members.
The country does not need a national carrier, as the routes internally and internationally are well catered for by other carriers, it will just be a case of accepting the ignoble fact of failure.
Anonymous.