The South African government has had to step in to pay a USD$166.5mil looming loan repayment from South African Airways (SAA) to prevent the national carrier from defaulting.
The move follows a USD $350 million bailout by the government in 2016.

In a statement, the South African Government National Treasury said it had transferred funds to SAA “to pay back its debt to Standard Chartered Bank, thereby preventing a default.”
Failure to have done so “would have triggered a call on the guarantee, leading to an outflow from the National Revenue Fund and possibly resulting in elevated perceptions of risk related to the rest of SAA’s guaranteed debt.”

Links:
http://atwonline.com/airlines/south-afr ... ls-out-saa
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-safr ... SKBN19M3JY


It seems to me entire SAA has become a farce in that the government seeks to put up appearances of a commercial operation, yet endlessly hands the airline money.
I would think either the government should finally make the airline stand on its two feet one way or the other, or otherwise just nationalize the whole thing and openly make it a state enterprise without worry of profits or not.

This will continue to happen when you have one of the president's "friends" as chairperson of the airline. Until the scourge of the current president and his web tangles is removed you will not see movement on companies that has his cronies in high positions. Seems like Standard Chartered played hardball with SAA to get their money. There is still a lot of debt that is maturing as well and the Standard Chartered debt was only about 20% of the total. If those other lenders demanded their money it would have been even more money.

Wow, didn't realise how bad things were for SAA, if I were Standard Charter I would want out completely.

Instead of SA making money and paying taxes to the hard-pressed government, it's a basket case which keeps needing government handouts. It's loss for the year to March 2017 is apparently ZAR4.5bn (about US$337.5m). The airline has a culture of not being focused on getting the job done, a situation which will not get better until a competent person replaces Dudu Myeni as the chairperson of the board.

Well exactly what was supposed to happen, happened - the government which guaranteed the loan paid for it.

But agree SA is a financial basket case and sadly growing drain on the nation. Not sure what the answer is.

readytotaxi wrote:

Wow, didn't realise how bad things were for SAA, if I were Standard Charter I would want out completely.

Banks (and equity funds) go looking for risk to get higher yields. It seems Standard Chartered has - thus far - played this one right: the SA government stepped in to prevent a default.

Some risks can't be measured with precision or efficiently mitigated, however. See Icarus myth.

What a sad state of affairs SAA has become.
Everything has just fallen apart under the ANC. Too many corrupt officials lining their pockets.

LAXintl wrote:

Well exactly what was supposed to happen, happened - the government which guaranteed the loan paid for it.

But agree SA is a financial basket case and sadly growing drain on the nation. Not sure what the answer is.

Actually, what was supposed to happen didn't. SA should have paid back the loan but didn't, leaving the guarantor stuck.

And that, boys and girls, is a lesson in why you should never, ever guarantee (or co-sign) someone else's loan. Sure as poo-poo you're gonna get stuck.

gunnerman wrote:

Instead of SA making money and paying taxes to the hard-pressed government, it's a basket case which keeps needing government handouts. It's loss for the year to March 2017 is apparently ZAR4.5bn (about US$337.5m). The airline has a culture of not being focused on getting the job done, a situation which will not get better until a competent person replaces Dudu Myeni as the chairperson of the board.

It isn't just the lead. Every business that can receive subsidies will need them. It is just the nature of subsidies. Look at Air India and Alitalia. They too are doomed to always be in crisis.

Lightsaber

I call it the dependency culture, which applies to both businesses and individuals. If you know that someone will always bail you out, then you have no incentive to work hard to become self-sufficient.

Most people only remember the ANC has freedom fighters and forget the hardcore Marxist ideology that was at the core of the group. God help SA

Being resident here (SA) these days I am not sure whether to laugh or cry over the fact that the money used for the bailout was taken from the National Revenue Fund; basically the national contingency, traditionally set aside for events such as natural disasters....so fingers crossed!!

SAA is losing around R370m/month (£21m), has been without a CEO for two years and has an absent Chairwoman in the pocket of Zuma. The inevitable SAA crash has just been pushed a bit further down the runway.

Time to use up those Voyager miles me thinks.

MIflyer12 wrote:

Banks (and equity funds) go looking for risk to get higher yields. It seems Standard Chartered has - thus far - played this one right: the SA government stepped in to prevent a default.

Some risks can't be measured with precision or efficiently mitigated, however. See Icarus myth.

The problem is that if the government is questioned about bailing-out SAA Standard Charter will be vilified as a greedy capitalist organization instead of anyone admitting that SAA's leadership is inept. Given the close ties between South Africa's political leadership and SAA's management I suspect this scenario is almost a given.

Last 4 comments above are right on point!

LAXintl wrote:

But agree SA is a financial basket case and sadly growing drain on the nation. Not sure what the answer is.

There is only one answer: the hopelessly corrupt ANC need to fall or be removed from power before they completely ruin SAA and the economy at large.

Poor SA, as a Brazilian I feel we`re sharing the same drowning boat....

Aaron747 wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

But agree SA is a financial basket case and sadly growing drain on the nation. Not sure what the answer is.

There is only one answer: the hopelessly corrupt ANC need to fall or be removed from power before they completely ruin SAA and the economy at large.

What guarantee is there that the replacement government will be any better? It really sounds as if corruption has become endemic in SA and a change of government doesn't make that attitude vanish overnight.

SamYeager2016 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

But agree SA is a financial basket case and sadly growing drain on the nation. Not sure what the answer is.

There is only one answer: the hopelessly corrupt ANC need to fall or be removed from power before they completely ruin SAA and the economy at large.

What guarantee is there that the replacement government will be any better? It really sounds as if corruption has become endemic in SA and a change of government doesn't make that attitude vanish overnight.

Sam you are partly on the money. There are probably five headline issues with SAA:

1. The well reported dubious link between the SAA Chair Dudu Myeni and the Zuma/Gupta cartel
2. The fact that SAA's demise is linked inextricably to SA's precipitous Junk status
3. The guarantor status that existed with the Standard Chartered facility
4. SAA is unlikely to survive long enough to be the beneficiary of political change
5. It has operated for years without any clear strategy

The ME3/Chinese also appear to be keeping their distance; maybe waiting to snap up the inevitable demised SAA scraps for a token R1?

shankly wrote:

The ME3/Chinese also appear to be keeping their distance; maybe waiting to snap up the inevitable demised SAA scraps for a token R1?

One option is for other airlines, both foreign and local, to just wait for SA to go bust. That way their business will get a boost and they can buy assets at knock down prices and be able to hire former employees (some such as pilots, engineers, cabin crew and ground handlers will have valuable skills).

They won't want to buy the company unless that's the only way to obtain key assets such as route licences.

Seems incredible that an airline like SAA can't be sustainably profitable. So sad. SA = AZ of Africa.

Planeflyer wrote:

Most people only remember the ANC has freedom fighters and forget the hardcore Marxist ideology that was at the core of the group. God help SA

Exactly. Hating the white man became the national pastime but what they didn't realize was that he kept the country together.

If South Africans Airways didn't exist, other airlines would pick up the slack. Maybe a few destinations from JNB would be lost (such as Munich, Perth, Sao Paulo) but other airlines would take over instead.

NichCage wrote:

If South Africans Airways didn't exist, other airlines would pick up the slack. Maybe a few destinations from JNB would be lost (such as Munich, Perth, Sao Paulo) but other airlines would take over instead.

São Paulo already has LATAM flying to JNB, so no loss there. And Perth was for many years said to be one of the few profitable longhaul destinations SA had, so QF would possibly add it to its network.

cathay747 wrote:

Seems incredible that an airline like SAA can't be sustainably profitable. So sad. SA = AZ of Africa.

South Africa has the problem of being geographically located too far south to be a proper African hub.

DDR wrote:

cathay747 wrote:

Seems incredible that an airline like SAA can't be sustainably profitable. So sad. SA = AZ of Africa.

South Africa has the problem of being geographically located too far south to be a proper African hub.

SA is similar to QF, whose hub at SYD, in being an end-of-line and point-to-point carrier - a major problem as this kind of carrier cannot bring traffic into and out of its big hub in the way that the ME3 carriers can. QF was making such big losses that it had to make a lot of cutbacks and was forced to get into bed with EK and codeshare on EK flights out of DXB - indeed, QF's only European flights are to LHR.

It's not clear how SA is going to get out of the mess that it's in.

DDR wrote:

South Africa has the problem of being geographically located too far south to be a proper African hub.

Honestly, I'm not sure I find that argument persuasive.

Other "end of the line" carriers have figured out how to become successful - or at least move towards not being perpetual wards of the state.

Setting that aside, JNB frankly is already "a proper African hub." It's certainly true that the advent of new, more modern and more efficient aircraft has opened up nonstop flying into southern Africa from hubs outside the region - particularly in Europe and the Gulf. But even with that, JNB still remains a natural connecting point for lots of people - including lots of foreign tourists - traveling to and from the region. Speaking only for myself - on my trips to southern Africa, I've always ended up connecting through JNB at least once. South Africa is still the dominant economy in the area, and JNB is still by far the largest and most important demographic and economic center. All else equal, a commercially-oriented airline should be able to make some form of a hub at JNB work without constant government support, even if fed by only a relatively small list of longhaul destinations. (And, indeed, perhaps that successful, commercially-oriented airline does already exist - in the form of Comair dba BA/Kulula.)

NichCage wrote:

If South Africans Airways didn't exist, other airlines would pick up the slack. Maybe a few destinations from JNB would be lost (such as Munich, Perth, Sao Paulo) but other airlines would take over instead.

i'm tempted to say aa and or ua would do that, but is saa making a profit to iad and jfk?

gunnerman wrote:

DDR wrote:

cathay747 wrote:

Seems incredible that an airline like SAA can't be sustainably profitable. So sad. SA = AZ of Africa.

South Africa has the problem of being geographically located too far south to be a proper African hub.

SA is similar to QF, whose hub at SYD, in being an end-of-line and point-to-point carrier - a major problem as this kind of carrier cannot bring traffic into and out of its big hub in the way that the ME3 carriers can. QF was making such big losses that it had to make a lot of cutbacks and was forced to get into bed with EK and codeshare on EK flights out of DXB - indeed, QF's only European flights are to LHR.

It's not clear how SA is going to get out of the mess that it's in.

I see your point, but I don't think comparing SA with QF is fair. QF has a big home market of people who actually can afford to fly, and do so regularly. They also have 2 quite large longhaul markets in Asia and the US, whereas SA only has Europe (the few flights to the US, South America and Asia on SA are negligable in comparison, as well as QF's only flight to Europe and South America).
I believe a more fair comparison to end-of-the-line carriers would be AR and LA (and by that I mean good old LAN Chile). And voilà two examples of how not to, and how to, live with and survive having your hub at the end of the World. AR has cronically depended on state subsidies, had some half-hearted attempts at routing some of their flights between EZE and Europe via GIG in order to capture that market, but basically AR could never figure out how to be profitable. Even the one longhaul-to-longhaul connection that made some sense that they had historically (Europe to Australia and New Zealand) wasn't promoted in earnest as an alternative to the Kangaroo Route or going via the US. Now, compare that to LAN Chile, who realized that they had a small home market, lousy location of SCL as a hub, so what did they do? They set up subsidiaries in Peru, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Argentina and Colombia, and they merged with TAM, the largest airline in the largest aviation market on their continent. Now, THAT is a way to wrangle yourself out of the stranglehold that your less-than-perfect geographical location puts you in. Watch and learn, SA!! But, of course, first you have to root out corruption and be a real for-profit corporation, not one run by the cronies of the powers-that-be.

It could well be that AR is a better comparison with SA than QF, but the bottom line is that they are all end-of-line carriers. A major difference is that QF had a CEO in Alan Joyce who put together a good management plan to get the company out of trouble, something which is hard to see happening at SA and AR.

As for LAN Chile: since the coming together in 2012 with TAM to form LATAM Airlines, the group has racked up repeated losses, so this doesn't look like a success story.

To come back to SA: only good management can save the company, which means bringing in a quality chairman to run the board and a quality CEO to run the company. This doesn't look as if it's likely to happen.

gunnerman wrote:

As for LAN Chile: since the coming together in 2012 with TAM to form LATAM Airlines, the group has racked up repeated losses, so this doesn't look like a success story.

Both Brazil and Chile aren`t booming anymore, but LATAM is insisting in not becoming full LCC, when vivacolombia, vivaperu and the likes start flooding the market, they`ll go down...

The main problem is that SAA is run by a highly corrupt incompetent government. This semi-communist ineptocracy makes it impossible for SAA to function in a normal profitable manner. Yes, there are similar problems to those which faced Qantas, in fact, Emirates had a similar proposed link for SAA as it had established with Qantas a while back. This was squashed by Pres Zuma's people and the excellent CEO they had departed shortly afterwards. Hopefully, I am wrong but the way things look now South Africa is going the same way as Zimbabwe and will become just another African basket case needing money and food from donors.

Where is Fair Skies on this one? LOL

Not that I'm any fan of any of ME3 airlines, nor am I biting on Delta's campaign of railing against massive government subsidies to them, but can someone please explain why government funding of SAA is perfectly acceptable, when funding of the Gulf airlines is a no no? Or does one need to be a lawyer to figure out why what is good for the goose is not good for the gander?

georgiaame wrote:

Not that I'm any fan of any of ME3 airlines, nor am I biting on Delta's campaign of railing against massive government subsidies to them, but can someone please explain why government funding of SAA is perfectly acceptable, when funding of the Gulf airlines is a no no? Or does one need to be a lawyer to figure out why what is good for the goose is not good for the gander?

Subsidies distort markets. And the long-suffering South African taxpayer cannot be pleased at having to stump up more money for a company which should be performing much better.

gunnerman wrote:

DDR wrote:

cathay747 wrote:

Seems incredible that an airline like SAA can't be sustainably profitable. So sad. SA = AZ of Africa.

South Africa has the problem of being geographically located too far south to be a proper African hub.

SA is similar to QF, whose hub at SYD, in being an end-of-line and point-to-point carrier - a major problem as this kind of carrier cannot bring traffic into and out of its big hub in the way that the ME3 carriers can. QF was making such big losses that it had to make a lot of cutbacks and was forced to get into bed with EK and codeshare on EK flights out of DXB - indeed, QF's only European flights are to LHR.

It's not clear how SA is going to get out of the mess that it's in.

That's in interesting interpretation of events.

Emirates was a free choice by Qantas - it had been in bed with Singapore Airlines for decades, which is hardly second choice, and a fair amount of people would still prefer the London stopover to be at Singapore rather than Dubai.

One of the several issues at Qantas is that they were flying some routes for prestige rather than profit - FRA for example - but the greater problem is that the airline had become bloated. It has cut 5000 jobs to arrive at the present profits:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-24/q ... it/7780984

"Qantas credits job cuts for record $1b profit"

But the situation at South African is different because it doesn't need a stopover to London or Europe or most places, really. So somewhere along the line, South African is either flying the wrong routes or is just incompetent - bloated, perhaps.

mariner

Saw the following little snippet in a daily news digest I receive.


South African Airways asked the Treasury for US$770 million in funds according to Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, who said the request had been made in a one-year corporate plan submitted by the airline.


That means SAA is burning through basically USD $2mil per day

Geez.

Would joining IAG help them since they obviously can't find good management?
Probably help keep the corruption in check too?

What is to be expected when marxists and their cronies take over? SAA is just one example of what happens when this happens.

With such massive losses, I wonder if they have any profitable route worth hanging on to?

mercure1 wrote:

With such massive losses, I wonder if they have any profitable route worth hanging on to?

It was previously mentioned in here that JNB-GRU was their only profitable long haul, but since they're burning so much and LATAM entering the market, I doubt this still being the case anymore.....

Would SAA politically be allowed to shut down or are the South African unions too strong for the govt to handle?

Also say in a best case scenario, the airline did declare bankruptcy and close, would any investor or foreign carrier be interested in setting up a new major airline based out of JNB with full 100% foreign ownership if Pretoria allowed it?

behramjee wrote:

Would SAA politically be allowed to shut down or are the South African unions too strong for the govt to handle?

Dunno about South African labor but even without strong unions I doubt that it would be politically feasible for SAA to be shut down. There are too many high value SAA positions available to distribute so the government won't be all that interested in eliminating a source of patronage. Voters may be upset about it but it's not likely that it'll cost the ruling ANC very many votes in the next election.

How much pain will voters put up with b4 they vote out the ANC? Are we looking at another Venezuela type situation?

georgiaame wrote:

Not that I'm any fan of any of ME3 airlines, nor am I biting on Delta's campaign of railing against massive government subsidies to them, but can someone please explain why government funding of SAA is perfectly acceptable, when funding of the Gulf airlines is a no no? Or does one need to be a lawyer to figure out why what is good for the goose is not good for the gander?

SAA is owned by the government, who stand surity for any loans that SAA apply for. The latest saga is as a result of the downgrading of SA's economy. One of the loans SAA has with a finance company is coming to an end and will not be renewed, so now they have to find another thus requiring another guarantee.

The current chair of the board's term has ended and she has been told that it will not be renewed, so hopefully we can get a competent person in. Hopefully Zuma will disappear as well and the stealing of state funds will end.

Balerit is correct. SAA provides jobs for ANC friends, in fact, the previous government often did a similar thing but they at least put competent friends in jobs. This government just collects a combination of thieves and idiots.The real solution would be to privatise it with a substantial portion of foreign investment by a highly competent foreign carrier. This cannot happen when SA is ruled by the current semi-communism, ineptocracy. Therefore, expect to see a similar bailout headline once or twice a year.

I was checking their fares from Brazil to Africa lately, they're cheaper than LATAM, maybe fighting hard to secure the clientele? TAAG also had good fares!

Planeflyer wrote:

How much pain will voters put up with b4 they vote out the ANC? Are we looking at another Venezuela type situation?

The voters have had enough. Sadly the ANC has the numbers from the uninformed though. Exactly why the US needs their electoral system. Or else just a handful of CITIES would decide the POTUS.
If the DA can't take power in 2019, it will be a dark future for SA. A Venezuela type situation is very possible.

Carrier needs a capital injection of $1 billion over three years to survive:

South African Airways (SAA) is effectively broke, Business Day reported on Thursday.

A cashflow analysis given to MPs on Wednesday in preparation for an SAA presentation to Parliament on Friday reportedly shows that the airline is effectively bankrupt.

SAA reportedly went into a negative cash position in July and further deterioration is expected in the months to come.

SAA needs a capital injection of R13 billion over three years to survive, Business Day reported. Worse, DA deputy finance spokesperson Alf Lees reportedly said that the cashflow projections did not include the R6.8billion in loans that SAA must pay to its lenders at the end of the month, that it was hoping to renegotiate.

Article
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/08 ... _23062449/

SAA will tell Parliament on Friday that it has an "aggressive" five-year corporate plan, which has been refined with the help of aviation experts. Let's see if they can make a turn around.

KarelXWB wrote:

Carrier needs a capital injection of $1 billion over three years to survive:

South African Airways (SAA) is effectively broke, Business Day reported on Thursday.

A cashflow analysis given to MPs on Wednesday in preparation for an SAA presentation to Parliament on Friday reportedly shows that the airline is effectively bankrupt.

SAA reportedly went into a negative cash position in July and further deterioration is expected in the months to come.

SAA needs a capital injection of R13 billion over three years to survive, Business Day reported. Worse, DA deputy finance spokesperson Alf Lees reportedly said that the cashflow projections did not include the R6.8billion in loans that SAA must pay to its lenders at the end of the month, that it was hoping to renegotiate.

Article
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/08 ... _23062449/

SAA will tell Parliament on Friday that it has an "aggressive" five-year corporate plan, which has been refined with the help of aviation experts. Let's see if they can make a turn around.

I would imagine the SA government will provide the capital to stay afloat? If SAA were to go under that would leave South Africa without a long haul airline correct? Has a country similar in size to South Africa (population, GDP, etc) ever had their national and only long haul carrier collapse? I know Alitalia isn't doing well but it stands to reason that there are enough large carriers in Europe (with home based close by) would be able to pick up the slack if it were to go under. SA is so isolated geographically from any other countries with large carriers. ET is probably the closest?

Surely it wouldn't be good the the economy.

77H

77H wrote:

I would imagine the SA government will provide the capital to stay afloat? If SAA were to go under that would leave South Africa without a long haul airline correct? Has a country similar in size to South Africa (population, GDP, etc) ever had their national and only long haul carrier collapse? I know Alitalia isn't doing well but it stands to reason that there are enough large carriers in Europe (with home based close by) would be able to pick up the slack if it were to go under. SA is so isolated geographically from any other countries with large carriers. ET is probably the closest?

In terms of collapses of primary long haul carriers, Belgium (Sabena), Nigeria (Nigeria Airways), and Switzerland (Swissair) come to mind. Two of those were replaced with successful successors.

V/F