Dire choices for ailing SAA

For as long as they select routes based on political goals and not where people actually want to go they will never turn a profit. Which is arguably fair enough for a national airline, but then it must be transparent and costed correctly. So if government insists that they fly to Beijing daily they can do that but must estimate how much loss they make on that route and give government (and taxpayers) a big fat very publicly broadcast invoice for the difference. At the end of the day, the taxpayer will still be shafted, but instead of burying the cost of regularly flying to places like Beijing, Libreville, Addis Ababa, etc etc in government bailouts and continually going bankrupt in the process, at least we can all see the pricetag on government's misguided political priorities.
 
Agree with #20 and #21.

They need to appoint financial people to the board, and Treasury need to give explicit subsidies for uneconomical routes.

Best would actually be to shut SAA down, and to sell Mango and Technical Services as going concerns.

It's not possible to sell SAA, it must just be liquidated.
 
Jola said:
Treasury need to give explicit subsidies for uneconomical routes.
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This I disagree with, cancel any unprofitable routes for the mean time, and let the private sector fill the gap. If SAA is one day run well enough that some routes can subsidise others, then bring the unprofitable routes back.
 
This just blows my mind. Surely if your company is in trouble and the freakin finance minister throws you a life-line then you hang on to that for dear life. Instead they decide to throw it out the door? :confused: :sick:
 
Like everything else in Africa, ZIM and now South Africa......what a typical mess once again.

VIVA ANC!
 
Media24 to fight SAA gag order

ape Town - Media24, the owner of Fin24 and City Press, on Tuesday gave notice to SAA lawyers that it would fight an interim High Court order gagging it from publishing the contents of a leaked memo dated 6 November 2015 to the SAA board from former acting CEO Thuli Mpshe.

Media24 is of the opinion that the order should never have been granted for lack of proper notice and substance among other things. It also believes that the information contained in the memo is of great public interest.

South African Airways (SAA) brought an urgent interdict in the early hours of Tuesday morning to curb several media outlets from publishing the contents of the memo which it described in court papers as "privileged" and "highly confidential".

The document was an internal memo prepared by the head of legal, risk and compliance at SAA, Ursula Fikelepi, to the board of the airline.

The interdict was too late to stop Business Day newspaper from publishing the article in its print edition on Tuesday morning, but the respondents - BDFM Publishers, Moneyweb Holdings and Media24 (incorrectly described as Media24 Holding) - were ordered to "remove all references to the opinion including all or any of the contents of the opinion that has already been published on the internet and social media".

Fin24's sister publication City Press published an article referring to the contents of the memo on Sunday already, but it has since been edited to comply with the court order.

In its letter to SAA, Media24's counsel Willem de Klerk Attorneys said the court order only came to the attention of City Press editorial staff at 07:00 on Tuesday. "The order was obtained some days after our client's article was published in City Press and online in Fin24.

"Our client intends to have the court order set aside and will anticipate the return day for doing so," Willem de Klerk said.

Willem de Klerk argues that whatever right to confidentiality SAA may have had in the memo, has been lost and cannot be recovered by enforcing the interdict it belatedly obtained, because the contents have been widely published - in City Press on 22 November, online on Fin24 and Moneyweb and on the front page of Business Day on 24 November.

In an affidavit to halt publishing the memo's contents, Fikelepi explained that she was requested by exco on 29 October to provide a legal opinion to the SAA board.

Her advice, which was “sought in confidence”, related to the legal risks and implications resulting from correspondence between SAA and Airbus GIE.

The correspondence, dated 2 and 26 October 2015, related to a potential dispute between SAA and Airbus over a transaction related to the purchase and swop of Airbus aircraft.

She said in her affidavit the memo contained "highly confidential information of a very sensitive nature", which could have "the potential of causing real and serious reputational and financial damage to the applicant and the government of the RSA".

Andrew Trench, editor-in-chief of 24.com, said the group believes that the material which is subject to the court’s gagging order is of profound public interest to taxpayers who ultimately fund SAA’s continued existence.

“We are of the opinion that this interim order will not be made final and we will oppose any move to make that so.”

Media24's counsel has given SAA until close of business on Wednesday to abandon the interdict before it applies to have the order set aside.

Fin24
Source
http://www.fin24.com/Companies/Industrial/media24-to-fight-saa-gag-order-20151124
 
Exclusive: SAA not obliged to share everything - Myeni

Amanda Khoza, News24

Durban – South African Airways (SAA) board chairperson Dudu Myeni on Tuesday said while the public had a right to know about certain things at SAA, the national carrier was not obliged to share everything.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning SAA brought a high court interdict to curb several media outlets, including Media24, which owns Fin24, from publishing the contents of a leaked memo dated 6 November 2015 to the SAA board from the acting CEO Thuli Mpshe.
Fin24 reported earlier that the memo was an internal memo prepared by the head of legal, risk and compliance at SAA, Ursula Fikelepi, to the board of the airline.

In an exclusive interview at the Hilton Hotel, Myeni said: "SAA is a state owned company and the public has a right to know certain things but we cannot discuss the day to day happenings of what is going on in the boardroom... we can’t do that."

Myeni said the board was concerned about sensitive information that had been leaked into the media in recent months.

"The board is concerned about the leakages but I want to assure South Africans that SAA is not in shambles. There is a handful of people that are leaking documents into the media.

"SAA is in good hands and it belongs to the government, it does not belong to certain individuals and I also know that people think that when they cause a state of anarchy as they are doing, maybe they are influencing a certain elite grouping," she said.

Myeni said some executives were not happy with some of the decisions taken by the board.

"South Africans are not focusing on an important issue of the Abu Dhabi route which was a route which was not profitable.

"We have lost about R280m but the focus on the media is my name, ‘Myeni’…I am sure there are people who are celebrating that we are making losses..."

She said the board questioned why some executives were continuously leaking information to the media.

"The question is why? What are they losing with what we are doing? We have commissioned forensic investigations into losses, we are doing our work… If someone is uncomfortable, they will run to the media for sympathy."

Myeni reiterated that SAA was safe and on the right trajectory.

"These leakages do not come from cleaners, technicians, engineers and any other staff members. This information that is always leaked into the media comes from the boardroom."

Myeni said the board needed to think long and hard on how to deal with the matter.

"At some point we will call a press conference and clear the air. We don’t want to mention the names of those individuals that are leaking information..."

Myeni said she could not speak about the legal action taken by SAA but admitted that, personally, there were several questions that needed to be answered.

"The question I am asking myself is that the leak came from a top structure and the interdict comes from the top structure of SAA. The Acting CEO has a duty to protect the airline.

"The elements that are causing this confusion belong to the same structure so in my personal capacity because you will hear from SAA, it is rather an unfortunate situation."


News24
Source
http://www.fin24.com/Companies/Indu...ot-obliged-to-share-everything-myeni-20151124
 
Went to Thailand recently on Etihad. Seats were comfortable and easy to sleep in, food tasted great, choices of hot chocolate, milo etc etc. Got our connecting flight back moved to SAA - what a ****hole. Seats made of rock, food choices worse than dirt, little to no variation in drinks options or cheap replacement alternatives. Worst part is SAA flights are far more expensive than Etihad. They should just shut down SAA.
 
^^vampire^^ said:
Went to Thailand recently on Etihad. Seats were comfortable and easy to sleep in, food tasted great, choices of hot chocolate, milo etc etc. Got our connecting flight back moved to SAA - what a ****hole. Seats made of rock, food choices worse than dirt, little to no variation in drinks options or cheap replacement alternatives. Worst part is SAA flights are far more expensive than Etihad. They should just shut down SAA.
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Also had this experience. Don't fly SAA, not if I have any choice.
 
It is inevitable that everything will have to be privatised eventually, because the ANC is incompetent at everything but feeding at the trough
 
But there is no choice to be made for SAA. The anc will just continue as they have been doing along with all the other state owned enterprises. Milking us dry.
 
reactor_sa said:
It is inevitable that everything will have to be privatised eventually, because the ANC is incompetent at everything but feeding at the trough
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Won't be anything feasible left to privatise, they will just have to liquidate.

ANC is destroying everything completely, nothing left to rescue.
 
Every bail out of any SOE is just more money that does not find its way to the poor.

SOE inefficiencies are robbing the poor and stalling transformation in many areas because funds are diverted to keep sinkers afloat.
 
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