South African Airways (SA, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) has denied a local media report it faces losing route rights following a decision by the country’s licensing regulator to review some frequencies the national carrier is not currently serving.
In a statement, the airline said it had made representation to the International Air Services Licensing Council (IASLC) on its current route allocation and the council’s decision to review some unused frequencies. "SAA assures its customers that the airline is not losing its route rights."
It continued to operate its current network and schedules to three domestic destinations (Johannesburg O.R. Tambo, Cape Town, and Durban King Shaka) and six regional destinations (Harare Int’l, Zimbabwe; Accra, Ghana; Kinshasa N’Djili, the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Lagos, Nigeria; Lusaka, Zambia; and Mauritius). It has deployed additional capacity on the Cape Town route to meet demand and had increased the aircraft size on the Harare route. According to the ch-aviation schedules module, SAA has switched from a narrowbody A320-200 to a widebody A330-200 on its daily services to Harare from Johannesburg.
SAA said it continues to ramp up its operations with the intention to resume full regional and international services by adding additional equipment. The first addition, A320-200 ZS-SZD (msn 6007), was redeployed on September 27. It had been part of SAA’s leased fleet before but was returned to lessor Celestial Aviation Trading and stored as OE-IPJ at Johannesburg since July 2020. The aircraft is owned by GECAS and managed by AerCap, according to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module.
This brings SAA’s current fleet to seven operational aircraft, including three A319-100s, three A320-200s, one A330-300, and one A340-600 used as a spare.
SAA codeshares internationally with Emirates, Air Mauritius, LAM – Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique, EgyptAir, Ethiopian Airlines, Singapore Airlines, and Kenya Airways.
Meanwhile, SAA’s shareholder representative Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) on October 3 welcomed a decision by the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town to dismiss with costs an application by disgruntled former bidder, Toto Investments Holdings, to stop the government’s partial privatisation deal with the Takatso Consortium. The black-empowerment investment firm tried to interdict the DPE from implementing the transaction pending the finalisation of a review application to be heard in January 2023.
The court dismissed Toto Investments’ attempt to force the non-confidential disclosure of all documents relating to the Takatso deal. It ordered that certain documents be disclosed on a confidential basis while others should be disclosed on a non-confidential basis. The court further ordered the main review application to be placed under judicial case management until the January 2023 hearing.
"Since the interdict application was dismissed, the department can continue taking steps to implement the [Takatso] transaction," DPE in a statement. "The department will comply with the court directive to provide a non-confidential version of the record of the transaction and the confidential version of the record within the 20 days stipulated in the court order," it said. "This means that confidential information related to the transaction cannot be disclosed for public consumption, and only non-confidential records may be shared with the public."
DPE said it remained committed to implementing the Takatso transaction as soon as possible.
Toto Investment Holdings, which had unsuccessfully bid for the partial sale of SAA, wants the current transaction to be declared invalid and a new process for a strategic investor launched.
The 51% sale of SAA to the Takatso Consortium, comprising black empowerment asset manager Harith General Partners and ACMI specialist Global Aviation Operations (GE, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo), has been dragging on for more than a year and is currently being reviewed by the country’s competition and air service licensing regulators.
Takatso is to inject ZAR3 billion rand (USD185 million) in working capital over two years into SAA and pay ZAR51 rand (USD3) as its share of the nominal transaction fee required under South African law once the deal is approved. For its part, the government has to absorb all of SAA’s historical debt, which includes an outstanding ZAR3.5 billion (USD197 million) for covering unflown ticket liabilities and concurrent creditor claims. SAA also still owes nearly ZAR900 million (USD61 million) in ticket revenue to former franchise partner Airlink (South Africa). The deal hinges on the government covering all of these historical debts.
United Airlines (UA, Chicago O’Hare) expects to resume normal service to Cape Town in South Africa, with its next scheduled flight from New York Newark due there on October 5 after a ship carrying jet fuel arrived in the Mother City, ending a temporary fuel shortage.
The airline was forced to cancel its inbound flight (UA 1122) on October 2 and return leg (UA 1123) on October 3 after the supply ship was delayed for more than a week because of bad weather. United Airlines operates a B787-9 thrice weekly on the route.
The Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) issued a NOTAM in the early hours on October 1 (valid until October 5) advising airlines to restrict their fuel uptake at Cape Town and for international carriers to schedule technical refuelling stops at alternative airports. Some airlines reportedly diverted their Cape Town flights to Johannesburg O.R. Tambo to refuel, while domestic carriers tankered supplies. According to Radarbox ADS-B data, flights by the following airlines were impacted over the weekend: KLM Royal…
The South African government expects regulatory processes currently holding up the semi-privatisation of South African Airways (SA, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) to be concluded by March 2023.
This was the word from Jacky Molisane, Deputy Director-General of the shareholder representative Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), when briefing lawmakers on the progress of the government’s semi-privatisation deal with the Takatso Consortium. Responding to a question, she said: “If the deal falls through, if the government cannot put more money into SAA, then the option we have all worked hard to avoid would have to be taken, and that is the liquidation of SAA”.
In a consequent statement, SAA said Molisane’s comments that SAA would be liquidated if the transaction was not concluded were taken out of context by some media. “The import of the statement made by the Acting DG is exaggerated and blown out of proportion”.
“SAA management assures that there is a variety of resources within the company and the global aviation industry that can be innovatively exploited for the future success of SAA. We…
Editorial Comment: Added comment from DPE. – 23.09.2022 – 14:46 UTC
South African Express (EXY, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) has been placed into final liquidation by the South African High Court, with the government blaming the regional airline’s demise on deep-rooted corruption, fraud, years of mismanagement and state capture, exacerbated by the impact of the Covid pandemic.
The move was expected after South Africa’s International Air Services Council (IASC) in July cancelled the stricken airline’s licences and related route rights following the failure of a second sale attempt. The state-owned regional carrier had not flown since it went into provisional liquidation in April 2020, after having been in bankruptcy protection since February 2020.
Evidence of corruption and bad management at South African Express was revealed in the report of South Africa’s Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture earlier this year. During the insolvency inquiry, key directors and executives were subpoenaed regarding financial and operational impropriety, with legal inquiries still ongoing, the legal counsel of the airline’s liquidator told ch-aviation.
The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) has urged law enforcement agencies to speed up…
South African Airways (SA, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) has changed its pre-Covid one-hub strategy focused on Johannesburg O.R. Tambo and is looking at a multi-hub approach as it slowly re-enters the intercontinental market, says newly-appointed interim Chief Commercial Officer Tebogo Tsimane.
“Cape Town has significantly developed as a second hub in Southern Africa, and for us, it does not make sense anymore to continue with our one hub pre-business rescue plan (BRP) and pandemic strategy. And our strategy also includes establishing hubs north of our home,” he said in an apparent reference to SAA’s planned pan-African alliance with Kenya Airways (KQ, Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta).
He told ch-aviation that SAA – which emerged from restructuring a year ago and is currently going through a partial-privatisation process – planned to “cautiously re-enter intercontinental markets” in line with the airline’s business rescue plan. “We have no intention to change that strategy. Our restart is moving at a pace as planned, and long-haul routes are now in view.”
Tsimane declined to disclose which…
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