jsnydcsa

More financial/posturing shenanigans
https://www.tourismupdate.co.za/arti...-hold-back-saa

escapefromphl

Most people I know in SA already avoid them:

https://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/...t-airline-outa

thijsseh

I don't think there is anything to 'avoid'. They are not operating. Have not been for close to a year (I think).

"Disfunctiona"l comes to mind.
And yet the government has poured billions of Rand into this beast and claim they can't pay for Covid vaccines. Scandalous!

jsnydcsa

Yep.
https://www.tourismupdate.co.za/arti...still-pipeline

SAA’s R9bn (€500 000) still in the pipeline
2 hours ago - by Sarah Robertson


The government appears to be moving forward with the SAA business rescue process and says it has put motions in place that will enable the distribution of the remainder of the R10,5bn (€585m) of business rescue funding.
On January 20 President Ramaphosa signed an Appropriation Act, which allows the appropriation of money from the National Revenue Fund for the 2020/21 financial year.
This, said the Department of Public Enterprises at a Wednesday parliamentary committee meeting, would pave the way for the remainder of the R10,5bn to flow to the airline. “We are expecting that, during the course of this month, the business rescue practitioners should be exiting the business. We have agreed to set up a receivership to take care of the remaining liabilities,” said DPE Director General, Kgathatso Tlhakudi, according to a report in Daily Maverick.
In the Wednesday meeting, all signs were that the airline would be handed back to its shareholder (the DPE) by the end of February, and that a decision on a strategic equity partner would be made by the end of March.
However, spokesperson for SAA’s business rescue practitioners, Louise Brugman, told Tourism Update that the remaining funds had not been received and that they had not even been given a planned date for the payment yet.
Brugman confirmed that no ruling had been made by Judge Andre Van Niekerk about the ongoing SAA labour issues but said a ruling was expected later this week. Trade unions Numsa and SACCA’s case against the BRPs and the DPE was heard in court earlier this week. The unions asked the BRPs to pay those of their members who had not yet accepted a three-month back pay offer by the DPE, within seven days.
“The shareholder that committed to that plan and to the funding cannot unilaterally come in after the event without taking the matter to the creditors’ committee. That is unlawful in terms of the Companies Act. We do not agree that SAA and the rescue process will fail if the court grants the application. A creditors’ meeting can decide if the rescue process should continue or if SAA should be liquidated. It is inappropriate the way the Minister wants to intervene here,” stated Numsa and SACCA’s lawyer, Minnaar Niehaus, in court on Monday.
Niehaus further argued that Numsa and SACCA members, who did not sign the three-month full settlement agreement, should also get paid what other SAA employees, who did sign the agreement, received in December but without waiving their rights for the rest of the back pay.
“The belated demand that employees must waive the right to remuneration was never part of the rescue plan. The employees have a legitimate claim,” he added.
However, Advocate Andrew Redding, on behalf of SAA and the rescue practitioners, said the money made available to the BRPs came with strict instructions that required employees to compromise in terms of full settlement of back pay. There was no further funding available outside of what was offered. He added that the matter also lay outside the jurisdiction of the Labour Court, as the business rescue process fell within the jurisdiction of the Companies Act.
The business rescue process, which has dragged on for more than a year now, has faced criticism this week. A Pretoria News report claimed that the SAA business rescue process had cost taxpayers R200m (€11m) to date. The BRPs did not respond to Tourism Update’s questions relating to these fees

jsnydcsa

It seems the only one's making money at SAA are the attorneys.
https://www.tourismupdate.co.za/arti...rescue-process
"Labour Court Judge André van Niekerk, who dismissed as “nothing less than misguided and bordering on the frivolous” another court application by trade unions...." (emphasis added).

johan rebel

SAA is a huge bottomless pit, with plenty of folks clinging to the sides trying to catch as much cash as possible on its way down.

Johan

jsnydcsa

Initially, I thought this news got lost during some Pauw-inspired night out by the BRPs and TU. Sadly, there is ZERO mention of actually starting to fly in May. That said, according to the article, a single source seems to have received some contact back from SAA CS.

Indeed, while the "positive"/"good news" article is below, this https://umhambi.blogspot.com/2021/02...ts-before.html tends to more clearly lay out the bad situation.

SAA to fly in May
Today 15:55 - by Sarah Robertson
https://www.tourismupdate.co.za/article/saa-fly-may
SAA has notified trade partners that its suspension of flights will continue up to and including April 30. This has thrown cold water over the hopes raised by the Minister of Public Enterprises’ prediction that SAA would exit business rescue by the end of February.
The airline’s notification stated that the further suspension was due to the ongoing business rescue process and regulations pertaining to COVID-19.
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said earlier this month that if all went well, SAA could exit its business rescue process by the end of February. The Minister said the airline’s Business Rescue Practitioners (BRPs) would have to confirm a list of outstanding activities before they could file a notice that the rescue plan had been substantially implemented. He added that he expected an interim SAA board to be in place for the next few months.
Some progress
Meanwhile, some progress does seem to have been made relating to payment of outstanding funds. News24 reported that it had had sight of a leaked document from the BRPs to SAA employees, where the BRPs stated that they had now received the outstanding funding for the business rescue process from the Department of Public Enterprises.
In the letter, the BRPs advised employees that they were moving forward with the payment of voluntary severance packages (VSP) for employees, and these were expected to be made in two batches, with the first portion to be paid this week. The second portion will be paid after SAA has attained tax directives from SARS showing that VSP applicants have valid tax numbers and that their tax filing is up to date.
Part one of the VSP payments is expected to include one month’s notice pay, payment of the full entitlement of accrued leave at the date when the voluntary severance agreements were signed, a pro-rata 13th cheque if applicable, and 2019 salary increase backpay, if applicable.
Part two will consist of one week’s remuneration for each completed year of service, a VSP top-up, if applicable, and a VSP incentive, if applicable
SAA’s customer service department appears to have sprung to life and started responding to emails again. Owner of Take Off Travel, Owain John, said he had had some correspondence with SAA’s customer service team over refunds.
Equity partner
The DPE continues to assert that it has identified a number of equity partners for SAA. In an interview with Bloomberg last week the Minister said three equity partners had been identified and that the government would make a decision on which one to pick in the next month or so.
Ethiopian Airlines, widely believed to be one of the candidates, said in October last year that it was willing to provide aircraft, pilots and maintenance services to SAA, as part of a joint venture, but said it was not interested in taking on the airline's legacy issues, such as Its debt.
Reports this week quote Ethiopian Airlines ceo, Tewolde Gebremariam, saying that talks regarding co-operation with SAA were making slow progress. He was reported in Flight Global saying: “We are still discussing but I would say we have not made the expected progress.”

B747-437B

SAA has notified codeshare partners that all international flights will remain suspended till at least 31OCT21.

johan rebel

Here we go again!

"South Africans were shocked to hear from Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, in his 2021 Budget Review last week,that SAA’s business rescue practitioners (BRPs) were asking for an additional R3.5bn (€192m) in funding."

Source

Johan

NextWhiteDeath

It's not that surprising. I really want to know which friend of someone in power gets the rescue money. It not like they could dissolve the company and just set up another one. There is no need to pull the corpse with a new plan.

thijsseh

I think the only recent flight has been one where a A34x (not sure what x was in this case) went to fetch a 1 metric tonne load of Covid vaccines. As the aircraft can handle 50T of cargo, that seems pretty 'efficient' use of taxpayer funded equipment (which possibly had to be especially maintained / certified to be allowed to make this trip).

Sigh....

johan rebel

And the pilots may have had to be recertified too.

Johan

B747-437B

It was an A340-600 (ZS-SNG). And yes, there was a sole source contract awarded to a non-certified training school owned by an SAA pilot to conduct the recurrent training (since SAA's own trainers are presently "locked out" as part of the industrial dispute between the union and the BRPs), which in turn necessitated one of 13 special exemptions to be granted by SACAA for the flight, some of which it now appears were not within their authority to approve.

https://www.politicsweb.co.za/politi...ine-flight--al

SAA used to be a commercial mess, but operationally sound. After this flight, you can scrap the latter as well. The difference is that a collapsed business just costs money, while a crashed airliner will also cost lives.

jsnydcsa

https://www.tourismupdate.co.za/arti...-investigation

thijsseh

I stopped reading that article early on when I got to the sentence ‘that corruption will not be tolerated’
Are there any South African state owned enterprises where corruption will not be tolerated? Don’t make me cry please.