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[South Africa] SAA Makes Progress

[South Africa] SAA Makes Progress

With the conclusion of the 90 Day Action Plan, South Africans now have an aviation asset, says South African Airways (SAA) acting Chief Executive Officer, Nico Bezuidenhout.

"As the 90 Day Action Plan period concluded South Africans now have a national aviation asset that is well on its way to relative stability," he said on Thursday.

Briefing reporters, Bezuidenhout said that as far back as December the airline was in a precarious position and that it was technically not a going concern and was experiencing substantial liquidity and solvency challenges among others. "The company was in trouble," said the acting CEO.

Bezuidenhout said the objective of the 90 Day Action Plan, which concluded on 24 March, was to stabilise the organisation and that "we put it on a path to recovery".

During the duration of the plan, SAA focussed on intervention areas such as commercial stability to restore solvency, governance which included the improvement of control mechanisms and the third being a strategy to revise the Long Term Turnaround Strategy (LTTS).

"When I stood here in December I said that you will hold me accountable for R1.25 billion in changes that we have to effect," he said, adding that the changes would consist of route and network changes, renegotiation of contracts and restructuring of lease agreements and aircraft activities and actions focussed at reducing the cost of aircraft ownership.

www.flysaa.com

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