SYDNEY, AU; The collapse of the South African national carrier in December 2019 came as no surprise. Having not turned a profit for a decade, the once world leading South African Airways followed the path of many state run corporations and fell to corruption. The former pioneering airline had been laden with debt and, under extreme pressure from the Middle Eastern carriers, lived up to its apt description as a Springbok amongst Lions. The 2019 collapse served as a precursor to the global aviation crisis of 2020 which would most certainly have brought SAA to its knees.
The coronavirus claimed a second victim only six months later, with Comair (the operator of British Airways and Kulula) following the national carrier into bankruptcy protection. Unlike SAA, Comair has recovered. While there is a plan to relaunch a new, partly privatised South African Airways, this has already been met with controversy due to the private firm in question having strong links back to the government. With a strengthening Ethiopian Airlines quickly becoming the powerhouse in Africa, it seems that if and when SAA ever recovers, it may not even be needed. Aside from its route to Perth from Johannesburg (that Qantas was already preparing to capitalise on), the airline lost money on all long-haul sectors. Outside of a few routes to Central Africa, the regional operation was largely the same.
The carrier has also been left behind on critical domestic routes. Private industry has stepped up where government failed and, as the above departure board at OR Tambo this week shows, no public entities are currently operating domestic air services. This follows SAA’s low-cost subsidiary, Mango, collapsing in recent weeks. Using an ever-increasing number of former Virgin Australia Embraer aircraft, regional operator Airlink has stepped up as a fully-fledged domestic and international airline. The low-cost FlySafair has matured and continues to grow, while regional CemAir has stepped onto trunk routes and even international operations with a new jet fleet. With the upcoming return of British Airways and Kulula, a new SAA could very well find itself irrelevant before even commencing operations. The question must be asked; how much more state funding can the ANC direct to the airline when the private sector is already doing a better job?
Even a recent publicity stunt spectacularly backfired. Despite the long term grounding of the airline, four SAA management pilots and one Airbus 340 were reactivated to fly to Brussels and collect South Africa’s desperately needed first batch of COVID vaccines. This should have been the perfect chance to fly the national flag as the country begins to emerge from the pandemic and reaffirm its position as a tourist hotspot. Instead, a series of mistakes led to the aircraft entering an automatic recovery mode after take-off to prevent itself from crashing, raising serious concerns about the carriers ability to operate safely.
Sadly, this all paints a clear picture of a South African market that is moving on from the national carrier. While SAA may return in some form, it will be a mere shadow of its former self. With such competent other options, I can’t see a circumstance where I would be booking my clients with them. While I’d love nothing more than to see the big Springbok on the ground in Perth again, I do suspect that “beef or cow” may have been uttered for the final time.
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