SAA finances will make your head spin
On Friday, 6 February 2026, South African Airways announced that it had published its audited financial results for the financial year ended 31 March 2025.
It said in a media statement that the results were announced at the South African Airways (SAA) Annual General Meeting (AGM).
The airline added that the financial results were received and accepted by the shareholder representative, Minister Barbara Creecy, the Minister of Transport.
The SAA Group said it generated revenue of R8.838-billion, a 35.89% year-on-year increase from the R6.504-billion in FY2023/24.
The state-owned company added that it recorded a net profit of R155 million for the year ended 31 March 2025.
“The fiscal year ending March 2025 marks the second year a profit has been recorded since SAA exited business rescue in April 2021,” it said.
At the end of the financial year, SAA’s cash and cash equivalents position remained strong at R1.967-million. It also reported no interest-bearing borrowings at year-end and R6.649 million in equity.
During the 2025 financial year, approval was granted to increase South African Airways’ fleet to 21 aircraft.
By the end of the financial year, 14 of these aircraft were in service, serving 16 destinations. Currently, the airline flies 19 aircraft.
During the financial year, it resumed flights to Perth, Australia. It also launched international routes to Lubumbashi and Dar es Salaam.
“These results demonstrate that despite numerous challenges, SAA is on course for a bright future,” SAA Group CEO, Professor John Lamola, said.
“We have entered a period of structured and strategic stabilisation of the business, focusing on institutionalising robust governance and agile management systems.”
Creecy congratulated SAA on reaching an important milestone, which includes both a modest net profit and the finalisation of the last of five outstanding audits.
SAA’s finances under the spotlight
South African Airways’ financial results looked good at first sight. However, trying to delve deeper into them revealed significant shortcomings.
MyBroadband requested SAA’s audited financial results to analyse the state-owned company’s performance. However, it could not provide this document.
A reason may be that South African Airways is still finalising the “last of five outstanding audits”. Without audited financials, analysing improvements is difficult.
A good example comes from the company’s 2024 financial year’s results, when it initially reported a R60 million profit.
However, auditors discovered that South African Airways had incorrectly recorded R431 million as sundry income.
This money is actually related to the derecognition of old business rescue debt and should have been treated as a prior-period adjustment to retained earnings.
The audit results forced a restatement by the state-owned company, turning the reported R60 million profit into a R371 million net loss.
Even the R371 million loss had to be adjusted. It was later reported as a R354 million loss after further adjustments.
This showed that the airline’s finances cannot be trusted on face value and that further scrutiny is warranted.
It should not come as a surprise. SAA has, for years, not produced audited financial statements while bleeding money and relying on bailouts to survive.
The fact that it is celebrating delivering audited financial results nearly a year after its financial year ended reveals the state of the company.
Trying to make sense of SAA’s finances
Trying to make sense of SAA’s finances is challenging, especially when relying on the company’s statements in previous years.
Every year, SAA uses handpicked metrics to paint the company in the best possible light. This means that there is no consistency.
To make matters worse, it picks different metrics from the South African Airways (SAA) Group and SAA SOC Limited, which is sometimes referred to as SAA (the airline).
MyBroadband filtered through SAA’s financial press statements over the last three years and summarised what the company said. It should be noted that there are discrepancies in some of the figures from one year to the next.
We also assumed that the company, or its PR company, had messed up some of the numbers in the press statement.
This includes SAA’s cash and cash equivalents, represented as R1.967 million, which we assumed was R1.967 billion.
The company further stated that the airline had no interest-bearing borrowings at year-end and R6.649-million in equity. We assumed it was R6.649 billion.
The tables below summarise the figures SAA has reported over the years, including restatements where available and incorporating our assumptions explained above.
South African Airways Group
| Metric | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | R2.0 billion | R5.7 billion | R7 billion | Not provided |
| Net profit | Not provided | R252 million | (R354 million) | R155 million |
| EBITDA | Not provided | R436 million | (R90 million) | Not provided |
| Cash | Not provided | Not provided | R1.4 billion | R1.967 billion |
| Equity | Not provided | R4.7 billion | R6.4 billion | R6.649 billion |
South African Airways SOC Limited
| Metric | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | Not provided | Not provided | R6.504 billion | R8.838 billion |
| Net Profit | Not provided | Not provided | Not provided | R30 million |
| EBITDA | (R1 billion) | R277 million | Not provided | Not provided |
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