South African Airways (SAA) Spokesperson Tlali Tlali says the state airline will still need financial assistance from stakeholders to enable it to be restructured.
The airline’s Chief Executive Officer Vuyani Jarana earlier announced that SAA would be split into three business units as part of a restructuring plan.
It is believed that Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is expected to announce some type of financial assistance for the airline when he delivers his budget speech on Wednesday.
Tlali says the restructuring strategy will take three years to implement. He says they hope stakeholders will review it and approve it.
“Part of the engagements earlier today with the external stakeholders was to bring them up to speed about the progress we are making. We hope the plan is not going to be affected in any way. It has been registered with the shareholders. It has been accepted by the shareholders as something that we have to implement.
“However, all of us are awaiting the decision from the shareholders in so far as our funding requirements are concerned and we will have to patient to waiting for the shareholder to announce as to what options are going to be available in responding to what is our funding requirements,” Tlali explained.
SAA to be unbundled
South African Airways has sought to explain what its newly-proposed strategy to restructure the national carrier will entail.
Tlali says the airline will not be broken into three separate entities, but rather its operating model will change.
Tlali has stressed that SAA as an airline will remain as entity but says the manner in which it conducts business will seek to create accountability in terms of operations.
He was responding to earlier reports that SAA CEO Vuyani Jarana said the cash-strapped airline would be unbundled.
“Part of what we are going to do is to introduce new operating model – part of the introduction of three business units. The airline will remain as a single entity but will have a reconfiguration of internal resources in order to do two things and achieve them. One more efficiency and two to bring a level of accountability in so far as our operations are concerned.”
