SAA’s decision to cancel flights will not leave travellers stranded – Brand SA

Acting CEO at Brand South Africa, Thuli Manzini, says SAA’s latest decision to cancel local and domestic flights is a well-planned decision that will not leave travellers stranded.

The decision which is due to low demand is aimed at saving cash and optimising the airline’s position ahead of further capital injection.

The struggling national carrier is expecting R2 billion from National Treasury before the end of this week.

The government promised SAA the cash injection when the airline was placed under voluntary business rescue last month.

Manzini was speaking to the SABC at the World Economic Forum (WEF) currently under way in Davos, Switzerland.

“I cannot shy away from the fact that there are challenges at SAA and these are not new challenges. But what you will know is that SAA was put under business rescue and there are a lot of steps that have been taken to make sure that we bring back SAA to where it was or where we want it to be. SAA made sure that when they took this particular step to correct whatever that has been happening, they made sure that they approached their sister airline, which is Mango. So, there is no one that is going to be stranded.”