The issue of pilot Pay cannot be left out when referring to the financial viability of SAA. How does this company that consistently make a loss afford to pay such exorbitant salaries. I understand they vary from over 300k for a boy pilot, to well over a million bucks for a senior Captain.
It's certainly good for the pilots and they should not be bashed for that, WHo does not want to be there? However from a business perspective it certainly does not make sense.
If you look at the 2006 financials you will see that staff costs were R3bn, Pilots who make up 7% of the staff complement got away with R900 million (excluding benefits) which amounts to close to 30%
In the broader sense the total operating costs were around R19 Billion, and therefore pilot salaries were around 5% which is not an area that can be overlooked in a business sense.
The issue of parity is highly debatable. Can we as South Africans afford to compare our earnings with the first world and their stronger currencies??? If anyone can get it right, it's SAAPA. Congratulations SAAPA.
In any event that is a national airline for a country that's about to host the soccer world cup and we can expect some substantial Capital Injection from the Government soon.