Has SAA turned the corner or is it flying too close to the sun?

Has South African Airways (SAA) finally turned the corner towards a stable financial future?

Those running the airline would want us to believe that… although their strange silence when asked questions by us makes us worry.

Perhaps they don’t want to share too much “good news”, for fear that their pilots – who are threatening strike action – might ask for even more.

Perhaps they are – rightfully so – embarrassed by the fact that they have sucked up enough taxpayer money over the years to have built scores of schools and hospitals.

Perhaps they are worried that someone will point out that it is easy to turn an operational profit in a business if someone simply writes off your debts.

The load factors – the percentage of an aircraft capacity filled by passengers – have steadily been rising.

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SAA carried just over 1.6 million passengers last year, according to figures in the public domain… although, again, they wouldn’t answer our questions.

After business rescue at the tail-end of the state capture looting at the airline, it tentatively began flying locally and re-established some of its former international routes, including to Perth in Australia and Sao Paulo in Brazil.

The former was an astute decision – as has been shown by the decision by the Australian flag carrier, Qantas, to reopen its own service to Johannesburg using the Airbus A380 superjumbo.

However, temporary operational surpluses do not cater for future expansion, or even investment in facilities on the ground.

This requires a lot of money. We worry that the ambitions of the airline’s executives may not square with what they have in the bank and they will eventually have to go, again, to the government for a handout.

SAA needs to remember the warning of the tale of Icarus: Fly too high and you will get burned.

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