South African Airways emerging from "Business Rescue"

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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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South African Airways administrators will appeal a court ruling that ordered them to halt a layoff process.
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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sn26567 wrote: 11 May 2020, 21:59 South African Airways administrators will appeal a court ruling that ordered them to halt a layoff process.
The court ruled that the administrators had to present a business plan first, thus before officializing the retrenchment process. However, the judge also ruled that the administrators are allowed to negociate retrenchment agreements on a voluntary basis.

With SAA's history of ongoing losses, there is no way that the airline can survive with the same number of staff (crew, office, ground staff).

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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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South African Airways administrators will not sell assets for an interim period without consulting with and involving the government.
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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4 of the 5 SAA A330-200's are flying from JNB Johannesburg to GRU Sao Paolo today: ZS-SXW ZS-SXX ZS-SXZ are already enroute, ZS-SXY to follow soon. Most probably return-to-lessor flights.

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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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South African Airways administrators have asked for more time to publish a business rescue plan for the struggling state-owned airline so they can discuss new government restructuring proposals.
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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South Africa Agrees to $1.2 Billion Bailout of National Airline

South Africa’s government provisionally agreed to allocate at least 21 billion rand ($1.2 billion) to the country’s embattled national airline to help repay debt and resume operations after the lifting of Covid-19 travel bans.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... aa-bailout
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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rwandan-flyer wrote: 01 Jun 2020, 11:57 South Africa Agrees to $1.2 Billion Bailout of National Airline

South Africa’s government provisionally agreed to allocate at least 21 billion rand ($1.2 billion) to the country’s embattled national airline to help repay debt and resume operations after the lifting of Covid-19 travel bans.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... aa-bailout
Statement by the opposition party DA (Democratic Alliance):
https://www.da.org.za/2020/06/exclusive ... ut-for-saa

Draft of the business plan:
https://press-admin.voteda.org/wp-conte ... 3116.2.pdf

So it seems that the BRP's have managed to make a full inventory of all debts and State guarantees from the past years. The total amount of the rescue deal is hallucinary indeed. But then, most of that 21 billion ZAR goes to companies and people who are legally fully entitled to get their money:
16,4 billion ZAR goes to "Payment of Lenders"
0,6 billion ZAR goes to "Payment of the General Concurrent Creditors"
2 billion ZAR goes to "Retrenchment of Employees".

Only 2 billion ZAR ("only"...) is booked as "Working capital injection to restart the airline post Covid-19".

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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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South African Airways is to terminate leases on 40 aircraft, while five A330-300s and 10 A320s are under negotiation. Six A330-200s, three A340-300s, three A340-600s, and seven A319s will be returned, while two B737-300SF reached the end of their leases.
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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South African Airways administrators asked creditors to approve another delay until 15 June 2020 for the publication of a business rescue plan for the cash-strapped airline.

South African Airways creditors stand to lose as much as US$679 million if a draft business rescue plan proposed by its business rescue practitioners isn't approved.
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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sn26567 wrote: 03 Jun 2020, 22:29 South African Airways is to terminate leases on 40 aircraft, while five A330-300s and 10 A320s are under negotiation. Six A330-200s, three A340-300s, three A340-600s, and seven A319s will be returned, while two B737-300SF reached the end of their leases.
3 SAA A319s are currently en route to Accra (probably for fuel stop) https://www.flightradar24.com/SAA4703/24a8f4e4
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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SA Express escaped liquidation after a judge granted a three-month delay in liquidation proceedings, giving the government more time to clarify its plans for the domestic and regional carrier.
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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Passenger wrote: 14 Jun 2020, 22:45 Last Saturday, repat flight South African Airways SA-9261 Frankfurt-Moscow-Johannesburg was operated by ZS-SND = A340-600. Just before boarding at FRA, it was noticed that one door couldn't be opened/closed properly. The crew preferred not to delay the whole repat operation, so about 45 passengers (with Schengen visa) were asked to stay in FRA till the next SAA flight, on Tuesday. The seats around the one door were unused/blocked. After that, the aircraft operated FRA-DME and DME-JNB without further problems.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/zs-snd
It seems that it didn’t went that smoothly. There wasn’t only that door issue: the flight was overbooked too. The stranded pax were left alone, no hotel was arranged for them because all organizers that were involved, pointed to someone else... Some passengers were rebooked on a KLM flight but SAA didn’t tell them that...The spokesman for the Department of International Relations and Co-operation said he didn’t knew there was a repat flight…

Exactly what one can expect from an ailing airline.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... 45-behind/

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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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South African Airways has returned 17 aircraft to lessors so far, including four A319s, three A340-300, three A340-600s, five A330-200s, and two B737s.
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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And for info, I spotted VP-CGI (A332 in SAA colours) at FNI (TAT Sabena technics) yesterday.

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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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This flight report from a SA film maker makes it clear that SAA has more problems then just the financial one:
https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/opini ... a-debacle/

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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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South African government had received unsolicited proposals from private sector funders, private equity investors and potential partners for a new national airline based on South African Airways.
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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Court dismisses SA Airlink bid to halt vote on SAA rescue plan

SA Airlink brought the matter to the court on an urgent basis ahead of the business rescue practitioners, creditors and others who were expected to meet on Thursday. https://ewn.co.za/2020/06/24/court-dism ... escue-plan
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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Investors in the new SAA: Govt is bluffing, experts believe

Government contends there are “serious” investors interested in SAA, but aviation experts seriously doubt that.

Creditors and stakeholders are due to vote on a business rescue plan on Thursday, which would require government investing another R10 billion in the airline. But Finance minister Tito Mboweni did not make any mention of the allocation in the supplementary national budget, released on Wednesday.

[...]

No names of interested parties have been provided, but two airlines have indicated interest: Ethiopian Airlines and Air Mauritius. But both airlines would have taken a big knock due to Covid-19.

https://www.businessinsider.co.za/new-i ... saa-2020-6
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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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rwandan-flyer wrote: 25 Jun 2020, 19:46 ...Creditors and stakeholders are due to vote on a business rescue plan on Thursday...
https://www.businessinsider.co.za/new-i ... saa-2020-6
The vote has been postponed to 14th July, on request of creditors and trade unions.
rwandan-flyer wrote: 25 Jun 2020, 19:46 Investors in the new SAA: Govt is bluffing, experts believe. Government contends there are “serious” investors interested in SAA, but aviation experts seriously doubt that... No names of interested parties have been provided, but two airlines have indicated interest: Ethiopian Airlines and Air Mauritius. But both airlines would have taken a big knock due to Covid-19...
https://www.businessinsider.co.za/new-i ... saa-2020-6
The reason why some airlines want to participate, is because they hope for a bargain: profit for them, and debts to the South African taxpayers. Once airlines understand that participating in SAA also means that they have to sign for the debts, the love will be shortlived.

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Re: South African Airways in "Business Rescue" as from 05 Dec 2019

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"...The Department of Public Enterprises has on Sunday announced its withdrawal from the Leadership Consultative Forum tasked with coming up with a business restructuring model for the embattled South African Airways..."
https://ewn.co.za/2020/06/28/public-ent ... ring-forum

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