Here come a GREAT BIG WOODEN SPOON:
divinehover "..."armed response burglar alarm industry"
What a silly, sad little man. Shame old chap, where did it all go wrong for you? "
It hasn't gone wrong here, but I have been saddened to see how wrong it has gone for all the friends and family who have had to retreat behind the bars and barriers of their armed response burglar alarms there... It's actually gone very well here!!!
beechbum (and by the way, 'beech' is wood, or 'hout', not a stretch of sand!) well done with the 'Google', pity your geography's not quite up to scratch though! And we have a marvellous local pub (that serves 'Black Sheep'!) with a beautiful beer-garden; it's very pleasant walking back from it, even on a dark winter's night, without the fear of being mugged or run down on the road... and then we don't even have a closed gate when we get home and don't have to worry about disabling that 'armed response burglar alarm'!! Have fun in your 'Gangsters Paradise'!!!
Now, back to the topic: there's been a lot of talk of the problems in Greece; 'recapitalisation' and 'bail-out' are used almost as interchangealble terms. Like-wise with SAA, the 'party line' is that it is 'recapitalisation' while to the real world it is a 'bail-out'. With proper commercial airlines there has to be a proper business plan that involves planned investment, etc. Hand-outs from taxpayers is seen, in those circles, as a sign of failure and with more enlightened taxpayers a lot of questions get asked!! And there has been mention in this thread about SAA pilots getting 'bonuses'... Aren't the SA taxpayers going to be asking some searching questions about those bonuses being paid to a 'business' that is in need of such a large taxpayer-funded bail-out? I somehow doubt it. As has been said above, that is just the way it is in SA. The 'party line' always wins out against business logic and the taxpayer is loaded up even more and more with the tab. That wealth-creating taxpayer's "camel's back" is going to snap sometime and the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. Enjoy your flying at that airline that seems to be a 'money black hole' while you can, if your conscience doesn't make you worry about your burden on those taxpayers. But then the taxpayers there will probably just give in like sheep to the party line going 'bah, bah, bah' all the way!
It must be so difficult for other airlines to compete in such a 'state distorted' business environment. But then maybe it isn't so difficult if you can compete on service and win your customers that way! (I saw a report some time ago about SAA having a 77% increase in profits. It's like a comment that I heard many years ago about the HNP having a 50% increase in their votes... "If you start with 2 matches and you've now got 3, that's a 50% increase, but it still means that you've still only got 3 matches"! 77% isn't difficult if you start from a low number!!)
Those SAA crews arrested at LHR did cause quite a few humourous comments like, watching an SAA A340 taxy in: "Do you think that the crew are going straight to the hotel, or stopping at the police station on the way?"!!
Now don't try that old "you're not here so you don't know what you're talking about" bleat: it's as old and irrelevant as the ossewa!!!