Page 6 - World Airnews Magazine August 2020

FLAREPATH

POOR PHIL

By Heidi Gibson

to be operating a full domestic network

plan. They claimed that the plan would and schedule from January 2021.
not work and applied to have SAA put
t’s a hatchet job and it’s not going to into administration. But it appears the And who is going to have the unenvi-

Iwork. And I said so when television Department of Public Enterprises, as a able position of trying to get this off the
channel CNBC – 410 on DsTV - asked majority shareholder in SAA, moved to ground. A new interim CEO has been

me to comment on the whole debarcle. block the legal action, and the vote on appointed - Phillip Saunders. So who
is Phil? All I can say is Poor Phil.
Please go to our website to check out the plan went ahead.
According to Acting Director-Gen-
the link. The airline will focus on its domestic eral of the Department of Enterprises
Back to the story. Creditors have ap- routes before moving on to interna- Kgathatso Tlhakudi, Saunders has
proved a rescue plan to save loss-mak- tional destinations. The airline will a credible track record of leading
ing South African Airways and now the also update and strengthen its fleet. airlines around the world, and his last
government needs to come up with at From July to February 2021, it position before joining SAA, was at
least 10 billion rand or (US) $596 million is prioritising the addition of six the International Air Transport Associ-
to fund the airline and even these esti- narrowbody aircraft. By December ation (IATA).

mates are not accurate. 2021, it aims to have 26 aircraft with According to his LinkedIn profile,

The fleet has to be scaled back and 19 narrowbody and seven widebody Saunders has experience as chief

the workforce reduced. As operations planes serving 27 destinations around commercial officer for Kuwait Airways,

gradually resume as travel restrictions the world. as well as, Air Malta and he was the

are eased the burning question is It will drop some of its international CEO for Caribbean Airlines. He has to

where is the government is going to find destinations such as Guangzhou, Hong appoint an interim management team
the necessary 10bn rand. Oh boy there Kong, Munich, and Sao Paulo. And in who must work quickly.

go the pension funds, I can hear you say. addition to its domestic and regional As far as fleet goes – SAA has sent two

Over the last three years estimates routes, it will offer five international ser- of its Airbus A350s to a Spanish aircraft

are around 20bn rand or (US) $1.1bn of vices to Frankfurt, London, New York, graveyard. They were leased from
funding. Keep in mind that the company Perth, and Washington D.C. Avolon, joining the fleet last November,

has not made a profit for more than The restructured national carrier aims having previously flown for Hainan Air-

eight years. lines. According to data from Planespot-
Anyway the 110-page rescue plan ters.net, both aircraft are no longer part

details how it is going to change of the SAA fleet.

all of this and the SOE will become South African Airways has four Airbus
self-sufficient and move away from its A350s. The other two were hired from
dependence on the government. What Air Mauritius which is now in voluntary

this space! administration.

It was interesting to note that regional There is always something sad about
airline Airlink, with the backing of sever- seeing these beautiful craft lying empty

al unions, attempted to block the rescue and not moving. Q
World Airnews | August 2020
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