SAA is flying on a wing and prayer

Over the past few years, I have been one of the strongest supporters of South African Airways (SAA), which I still consider a professional and friendly airline … at least from a customer perspective.

In the past decade, I have flown to Europe on more than 15 occasions on all manner of international carriers and, honestly, the experience on SAA (on four different return flights) was easily the best.

The people were friendly, the planes were modern and clean and, surprisingly, the food served on board was better heading north than it was coming south, meaning SAA’s Air Chefs operation was also at the top of its game.

I’ve had similar experiences on SAA when flying locally to Cape Town and Durban. And, up until now, I would have whole-heartedly recommended them. So why then, did we just spend R27,000-odd booking two return tickets to London on Virgin Atlantic?

Firstly, when I did the comparisons, I found SAA’s price for a similar round trip was around R3,000 higher (and even then, Virgin’s seats are in its “economy delight” section, which promises extra legroom as well as priority seat allocation and boarding).

At the time we booked last month, the government was still sitting on its hands when it came to organising a bailout for the national airline. And, frankly, I didn’t want to get to the gate and find no flight and no money …

I am not the only one, either. SAA has cancelled a number of local and international flights – and the government’s dilly-dallying has seen SAA’s customers flee in numbers to the opposition.

I suppose that, if you’re brave enough to book to Europe on SAA, you might be able to stretch out across a few seats in economy class in a near-empty plane.

We all know by now that SAA has been put into a tailspin by the ANC and its cronies, who saw the airline as yet another cow to be milked. And, even if money is suddenly found to help turn the airline around, it will be too late.

In 2013, the then acting chief executive of the airline, Nico Bezuidenhout, and senior execs and board members, put together a “turnaround strategy” which would have seen SAA go back into profitability in 2018.

Enter Dudu Myeni, who spiked a potential multibillion rand deal with Emirates, one of the strongest and most profitable airlines on the planet. The partnership was to have been the core of the turnaround plan. I have seen that plan – and its rationale for finding a strong foreign partner was interesting.

Back in the heady post-1994 era, the arrogance of South Africans saw us claiming that SAA “brings Africa to the world and the world to Africa”.

The reality is – as the turnaround strategy honestly admitted – that SA will never be more than an “end of hemisphere” destination and SAA an “end of hemisphere” airline.

In other words, it is too far from the real worlds of Europe, Asia and the Americas to be a realistic transit point into Africa. Also, because it is so far away, it needs a foreign partner to offset its disadvantage.

Had the SAA board (and Myeni) authorised the plan by Bezuidenhout and the others, SAA might have been able to still be a major player in Africa.

Sadly, time moves very quickly in the aviation business and Ethiopian Airlines has long since surpassed SAA as Africa’s top airline, at least in terms of the age and sophistication of its fleet and its profitability (it made US $2.5 billion in profits in 2017).

Addis Ababa is now also a major hub for Africans travelling elsewhere (and people from all over the world coming to Africa), with Nairobi (home of Kenya Airways) not far behind. Even Rwanda is getting in on the act, with the announcement that Kigali airport is be to be upgraded to an international hub.

Sadly, SAA, along with OR Tambo International airport – and SA itself, is going to find itself firmly in the B League of African countries when it comes to aviation. And that will happen within the next 10 years, mark my words.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.