Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has suggested that South Africa ‘will need a new national carrier’ and that his cabinet colleague, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan had spoken about ‘building a new airline from the ashes of SAA’.
Mboweni made these remarks when explaining the government’s R500 billion ‘stimulus package’.
The idea of creating a new airline from the ashes of SAA was raised by Mboweni in 2019, but was dashed by the African National Congress (ANC) at its National Executive Committee meeting. The NEC likely believed SAA was going to continue operating.
Apparently the latest iteration was presented to Gordhan by the trade unions representing employees at SAA. Now, however, the business rescue practitioners for SAA have presented the options of voluntary wind-up or involuntary liquidation.
IRR analysts point out that there is no more justification to creating a new state-owned airline as there was to keep SAA going for so many years. It appeared that public sector trade unions believed their members should be immune from the disadvantages faced by employees in the private sector when a business collapsed. They were, however, governed by the same labour laws.