SAA is a slave of the South African government and so of course every South African has an absolute constitutional right to slag the thing off every time they might want to. It's a freedom charter thing, don't you know?
It is a pathetic rebuttal to claim that any criticism of SAA comes from those who did not get in to the parastatal parasite. One might as well attribute jealousy and green eyed monstrosity all around one, a trait which does nothing other than exemplify the small mindedness of those who use such an excuse.
There are many pilots who use objective decision making to formulate their own opinions and a healthy disdain for South African Airways and its truly appalling concept of customer relations and cabin staff training in no way shape or form implies envy, rather a degree of healthy discrimination. So many that do join SAA only use the government branch as a stepping stone to the likes of Qantas, Virgin, Emirates, Cathay and even EasyJet that the quality of the department speaks for itself. The salary structure is, of course, sufficiently significant so as to dissuade most who fly for the company from leaving. That's an important incentive to keep one enchained.
As for trying to get into SAA, speaking personally, I am too old and too experienced to do so. When you had to be a South African, I was not yet one, when you had to speak Afrikaans, I never could, when you had to know a training captain or two, I never did. All in all I never fell into the prism of what some might term qualified bigotry necessary for entry into the national carrier of South Africa. Now of course, speaking reflectively, if you cop the drift, the tradition of bias continues.
Having said all of that, let me close this little article by saying that the quality of training for SAA flight crews is probably among the best in the world. The SAA captains of my acquaintance are fine and upstanding fellows who are absolutely professional in every aspect of their trade. They are of course grossly overpaid but then that is their good fortune. I do sincerely hope that the same qualities of character as applies to the commanders can be attributed to the first officers of South Africa's so heavily subsidized transport company. I have my doubts but then I distrust political mouthpieces.