IRP
(If I may call you that)
There are good financial reasons for having the nice new planes (better fuel efficiency / lower maintenance requirements) – but in the case of a Flag carrier they would look a bit daft flying 707’s around.
But having had the opportunity of flying in all three classes on both SAA and Virgin to and from SA I see your point about “window dressing” – given the choice I’d be on Virgin every time.
Slapfaan – I think part of the concern is that they (SAA) can afford to give this rates not because of efficiency but because the rest of their costs are covered by the taxpayer – thus if the LCC goes ahead you may well see 1ZAR tickets until they have got rid of the other LCC’s – then bye bye SAA LCC and back to high prices.
It’s not a fair playing field – exasperated by SAA being almost Assetless – if one of the current LCC’s need cash they go to the bank and can mortgage their planes, SAA can’t do this so are reliant on government loans / handouts.
BTW - Of course the wing of the scarebus is the best bit - look who made it
Fluffy – I think our main point of disagreement is the reason SAA lease most (if not all) the planes – the high rate of leasing worldwide for 738’s currently is because lease companies have most of the ones coming off the line – SAA could have bought theirs but the CEO at the time could show more profit on paper by selling assets and leasing replacements – this in the long term is costing SAA LOTS of money and making the lease companies LOTS of profit.
The paper profit has now dissipated, so without a major cash injection SAA can’t really afford to buy many planes.
While I agree SAA have many “hangers on” I do actually feel sympathetic for the CEO’s since the big sell off – the task of making profits from an airline that’s been raped is not an easy one – but I do question their interest to actually rebuilding the airline to somewhere near the status it once had vs their interest in bonuses / golden parachutes and intention to do a bit and then move on.
South Africa is now paying for actions that happened some years ago.
Oh – and while CFM56-7 (738 engines) may have best dispatch reliability right now the CFM56-3 (733/4/5 engines) have best “on wing” time (MTBR) with their reliability unfairly “skewed” nowadays by poor third world operations.