Couldn't agree more with Mutt on the consultant thing. For the first couple of years of its short existence Sama was crawling with so called consultants who brought very little value whatsoever. A consultant could be described as someone who has achieved a certain level of experience in a particular subject matter or field and can then give advice or consult on said topic; the army of revman, pricing, res system, marketing and other consultant types at Sama did not fit this description and simply took the money and ran. Experts in not very much at all.
Deep pockets were not something that Sama had but as Mutt has said, Nas was able to find a wealthy benefactor and therefore have managed to avoid going the same way as Sama, which they surely would have. Nas is not without their troubles. They have had an inordinate number of CEO's for such a small airline with a short operating history and the level in in-fighting and politics there is dizzying.
Both companies, at numerous points in their histories, have faced serious cash flow issues to the point of not being able to pay salaries on time. Sama is probably more guilty of this than NAS.
The figure quoted of a 2billon USD operating loss at Sama is testament to the unstable start, poor aircraft choice and uneven playing field that it had to operate on. I'm sure Nas has fared no better but their losses may never be known. All that is known is that the losses at Nas over the years must be substantial; they couldn't be anything but.
It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.
Hustle On.