Myeni’s flights of misguided fantasy

WHEN SAA chair Dudu Myeni found herself facing bipartisan criticism from the standing committee on finance last week, she reached for the most convenient scapegoat she could find: the pilots.

Asked to cite the top challenges facing the airline, she listed pilots and pilots’ salaries as “our No 1 problem”.

This assertion is as remarkable as it is untrue. Frankly — based on the current financial figures — even if every SAA pilot worked for free, the airline would continue to rack up losses in the billions.

What she should have said was: “Mr Chairman, SAA has soaked up billions of rands in bailouts over the years due to poor governance, a meddling shareholder and management that has resembled a children’s game of musical chairs.”

As for the cost of pilots, SAA pilot salaries undergo regular benchmarking against eight international airlines to ensure market competitiveness. This needs to be said: at 40 000ft, you want the best pilots at the controls of your plane — not pilots who got the job simply because they can’t be employed anywhere else.

It is ironic that Ms Myeni made much of SAA’s excellent safety record at the same parliamentary briefing — something her “No 1 problem” has had a major role in maintaining.

We, the pilots of SAA, are proud of what we do and proud of our airline. We cumulatively have more than 13 000 years of loyal service to SAA.

We want a board that understands what it takes to run a successful airline and a management team with the aviation experience to make that happen. —