Curbing SAA’s flight risk

South African Airways (SAA) will reportedly be surrendering to Mango a large number of its domestic flights between Johannesburg and Durban, and between Cape Town and Johannesburg. If this is the first step to being wound up, then at last SAA has got it right.

On the Johannesburg-Durban route, it will reduce its weekly flights from 112 to 68 and Mango will increase from 88 to 132, while on the Johannesburg-Cape Town route SAA will reduce its weekly flights from 202 to 162 and Mango will increase from 76 to 116. Further reductions have been made on the routes from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth and to East London.

SAA should continue reducing flights until all the routes are either stopped or run by Mango. Then SAA will have been wound up and Mango can be privatised.

The good news is that winding up SAA will save about R25bn over the next five years — an amount that could fund 50,000 houses.

Terry Markman Via e-mail