The demise of Safair
Gentlemen, a lot of posts have been going around about Safair. A lot of blame has been put on management at Safair and some people on this site have even gone so far as to blame the aircrew for sitting at home and earning a salary. Be that as it may, I think its time we look at what is happening and what needs to happen fast or a once great company will be lost forever.
Imperial Holdings, the parent company who acquired SAFAIR in 1998 (as well as NAC and recently acquired Naturlelink through shareholding), seems not to be interested in their aviation division anymore, according to the new CEO of Imperial, Mr Hubert Brody. This was made public by himself in a recent interview on a Classic FM radio show when he indicated that “aviation is no longer part of its strategic vision.” Makes me wonder why they even appointed Mr Hugh Flynn as the new chief executive officer of their Aviation division, probably just to shut it all down. All of these names are freely available on Imperial’s website, should the moderators be concerned about their mention.
So bearing this in mind, you now have Safair receiving no more financial backing from Imperial, yet still having to show a profit to the Imperial investors. Last I heard it was something ridiculous like 30% (you show me any aviation company who can consistently show that kind of profit every year). Management is thus doing the only thing they can to achieve this, selling off assets. One can only sell off so many assets before you start to damage your core business - in this case, the leasing out of aircraft and providing specialized operation. The next step would be to try and bring in more funds with existing contracts. To achieve this you start to review your contracts and increase prices, thereby risking losing your clients to competitors. The next step is to cut overheads. The best way to do this is retrench personnel and presto, you save more money. But there is an old saying in aviation. To make a small fortune you need to start with a big one. The problem is, the small fortune is now getting so small that you cannot make a profit anymore.
The bottom line is, unless Safair gets some serious investors to back them and soon, this company is not going to be around for much longer.