South Africa: South African Airways Dies

The airline South African Airways is living its last days. REUTERS / Siphiwe Sibeko

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The coronavirus crisis is about to make a major victim in the air transport sector, the South African company South African Airways (SAA) already indebted for a long time and placed under the supervision of financial administrators. The international context accelerated its fall. The government's half-promised bailout will not happen.

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With our correspondent in South Africa, Noé Hochet-Bodin

The airline South African Airways (SAA) had just celebrated its 86th birthday. The old standard of South Africa, however, has only a few days to live.

The government wants SAA to give way to a new "  more dynamic  " company. Because dynamism lacked SAA, unprofitable for nine years and which has survived until now thanks to bailout plans.

Partial privatization

SAA will therefore not survive the coronavirus, which is causing air transport to experience the greatest crisis in its history. The fall has already started behind the scenes for six months with the sale of numerous aircraft and the cancellation of a dozen international connections.

The financial administrators plead for a pure and simple liquidation. The government refuses because it wants a new company that would reuse some of SAA's assets. It would have two heads, one governmental, the other made up of actors of the private sector.

In a way, this is a partial privatization, which frightens the unions. The government has indeed promised that sacrifices would be demanded in particular to the 5,000 employees of South African Airways.

► Read also: Coronavirus: the African air sector affected

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  • South Africa
  • Aeronautics
  • Coronavirus

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