SAA completes 60 days of 90 Day Action Plan
FEB 17, 2015: South African Airways (SAA) completes 60 days of the 90 Day Action Plan commenced last year. The plan, a roadmap to return the carrier to relative stability, was developed to return the business to full implementation of its broader turnaround plan, the Long-Term Turnaround Strategy. A further State guarantee was received from […]
FEB 17, 2015: South African Airways (SAA) completes 60 days of the 90 Day Action Plan commenced last year. The plan, a roadmap to return the carrier to relative stability, was developed to return the business to full implementation of its broader turnaround plan, the Long-Term Turnaround Strategy. A further State guarantee was received from the airline’s Shareholding Ministry, National Treasury, to ensure the airline’s continued financial stability.
According to SAA Chief Executive Officer Nico Bezuidenhout, “While it is business unusual at SAA the implementation of the 90 Day Action Plan has seen immediate beneficial commercial decision making on the one end while cost-compression measures have been substantially tightened to ensure that the business returns to relative stability. This is the objective of the Board and the management of South African Airways and we are intent on returning the business to commercially sound competitive activity in the market.”
Recent and planned network configurations stand to positively impact SAA in the region of R600 million per annum; the genesis being the culling of loss making direct flights between Johannesburg and Beijing and Johannesburg and Mumbai sans sacrificing connectivity through deepened commercial relationships with a number of Gulf-state and other carriers. SAA launches its first direct flight between Johannesburg and the Middle-East on 29 March that will enable further network growth through end-point code-sharing with Gulf carriers, particularly to China and India. SAA has also, during the past two months, grown its sub-Saharan African network due to strong commercial demand with frequency additions between Johannesburg and Maputo, Harare and Mauritius among others. “SAA will announce further network reconfigurations in the coming months as well as new, commercially attractive destinations,” says Mr. Bezuidenhout. “It’s an exciting time and we are seeing commercially sound network decisions receive full backing from our Board and Shareholder”.
