{"id":291170,"date":"2018-12-16T08:10:49","date_gmt":"2018-12-16T06:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=291170"},"modified":"2018-12-16T08:10:49","modified_gmt":"2018-12-16T06:10:49","slug":"saa-boss-on-what-keeps-him-awake-at-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/291170\/saa-boss-on-what-keeps-him-awake-at-night\/","title":{"rendered":"SAA boss on what keeps him awake at night"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South African Airways CEO, Vuyani Jarana, has told City Press that the airline needs further support from the government in order to survive, following a R5 billion bailout through an Appropriation Bill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not our asset. It is a state asset and we are just the stewards trying to make it work for the state,\u201d Jarana told the paper in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo the extent that we are seen to be good stewards, we need the government\u2019s backing and support.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>SAA said that it aims to be profitable by 2021 and will incur financial loses of R5.2 billion and R1.9 billion for the 2018\/19 and 2019\/20 financial years, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/282900\/government-has-plugged-r57-billion-into-saa-and-counting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Free Market Foundation<\/a>, SAA has swallowed up over R57 billion in taxpayer\u2019s money over the past 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Public Enterprises is considering the possibility of introducing a strategic equity partner for the airline, according to the Parliamentary Communication Services.<\/p>\n<p>However, Jarana said SAA is not ready for this as it would first need to restructure its portfolio to meet the demands of the market.<\/p>\n<p>He added that a strategic equity partner would bring about certainty for the airline\u2019s future.<\/p>\n<p>Officials from the department told the Standing and Select Committees on Appropriations last month, that despite previous bail-outs for SAA, including the R5 billion under consideration, the airline will still be insolvent.<\/p>\n<p>Jarana said he was confident about the turnaround plan for SAA, but is worried about the limited timeline the enterprise has for potential recovery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat keeps me awake at night is not whether we are going to make it work, but rather the pace we need to make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/287394\/the-problem-with-turning-saa-around-cfo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The problem with turning SAA around: CFO<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South African Airways CEO, Vuyani Jarana, has told City Press that the airline needs further support from the government in order to survive, following a R5 billion bailout through an Appropriation Bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":282908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26,1675],"class_list":["post-291170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline","tag-saa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291174,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291170\/revisions\/291174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}