Huge SAA flight cancellations

I dodged a bullet there. Was meant to fly back from Congo on Friday, I rescheduled for the Tuesday before because of some other reason.

The Friday flight was cancelled.
 
This is not so much a case of employees per aircraft. They are largely comparable to most airlines in this regard.

What they don't tell you is that even when I worked for a competing airline 15 years ago, the person sitting at the SAA office next to me, doing the exact same job, was earning more than double what I was earning at the time.

This, plus a strong Union bitxhing for 10% increases every year, plus their strict BEE policy, has resulted in 5000+ entitled individuals who only joined SAA for the money in the first place.

Even if they cut staff by 20% , their salary bill would be double that of any of the other scheduled Airlines in SA.

SAA can not ever return to profit. It's simply not possible.
 
Poor, poor SAA. My heart grieves for the many thousands of real professionals who have done - and still do - their level best to keep the airline flying. This once fine airline has been brought to the brink of ruination by politicians who have not the slightest grasp of what it takes to keep a fleet of commercial jets flying safely. There are thousands of smart, capable and good people at SAA who pour their hearts and souls and professional excellence into the enterprise. They do that despite the shockingly incompetent management foisted on them by politicians, despite the never-ending political intereference and cadre deployments, and despite the deadweight of ten or fifteen thousand useless employees who do nothing but suck off the State teet.

While I'm no fan of state-owned enterprises of any sort whatsoever, I still feel sorely for the thousands who are good at their jobs, who've done more than their fair share to keep SAA going despite all the political crap. They must weep to see things come to this, and I join them in shedding a tear. There's probably worse to come.
 
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Well it looks like even if they want to sell saa, they cant sell more than 25% of it according to the Air Services Licensing Act of 1990 reported here. Doubt anyone is going to bother dumping cash into a failing airline and having no decision making power to try make a profit.
 
Space said:
The 2-day industrial action at SAA is definitely good for the competition:

I live on the approach path to Cape Town International airport and am seeing increased frequency overhead today of FlySafair and Comair (British and Kulula) as well as SAA-affiliated Mango, SA-Airlink and SA-Express flights today, and doubtless they have higher seat occupancy without the need to discount, so they are operating at optimum profitability.
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With all the SAA planes [literally] pushed into a corner at ORT yesterday my RwandAir plane actually got a jetway when it landed. Every thing did.
 
Mystic Twilight said:
Well it looks like even if they want to sell saa, they cant sell more than 25% of it according to the Air Services Licensing Act of 1990 reported here. Doubt anyone is going to bother dumping cash into a failing airline and having no decision making power to try make a profit.
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The only option is to shut it down.

#ProudlyBroughtByANC
 
NUMSA head says its not safe to fly SAA.

Because you know, he has decades of airline experience...
 
Arthur said:
Poor, poor SAA. My heart grieves for the many thousands of real professionals who have done - and still do - their level best to keep the airline flying. This once fine airline has been brought to the brink of ruination by politicians who have not the slightest grasp of what it takes to keep a fleet of commercial jets flying safely. There are thousands of smart, capable and good people at SAA who pour their hearts and souls and professional excellence into the enterprise. They do that despite the shockingly incompetent management foisted on them by politicians, despite the never-ending political intereference and cadre deployments, and despite the deadweight of ten or fifteen thousand useless employees who do nothing but suck off the State teet.

While I'm no fan of state-owned enterprises of any sort whatsoever, I still feel sorely for the thousands who are good at their jobs, who've done more than their fair share to keep SAA going despite all the political crap. They must weep to see things come to this, and I join them in shedding a tear. There's probably worse to come.
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I think, once we drop our snarky comments, we feel much like you do. It's just sick to see the political deployments and interference into what was one successful SOEs, sinking them.

When the now ex Minister of Labour started throwing about her (ample) weight because quotas are not met at Pilot level, insisting the tests and exams be adapted, you known you're fecked. This is also, along with some other similar reasons, one of the sister airlines's senior execs decided to up and leave, now quite happy in Aussie.
 
I see the unions are now threatening a secondary strike across the entire aviation industry (SAA subsidiaries, other local airlines eg Comair, ground crew etc)

Gonna be the nail in the coffin for tourism if they do this along with a lot of the internal transit for work. Crazy .
 
krycor said:
I see the unions are now threatening a secondary strike across the entire aviation industry (SAA subsidiaries, other local airlines eg Comair, ground crew etc)

Gonna be the nail in the coffin for tourism if they do this along with a lot of the internal transit for work. Crazy .
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Stupidity knows no bounds. In the bigger context, strikes and anarchy is out of bounds. It's killing the country for everybody.
 
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