But SAA is not solvent is it and so there can be no imperative to keep it so.
No company is solvent when its financial base is funded from public funds at tax payers' expense. Pubic money is being used to bail out an organization that would be bankrupt in the private sector. If SAA could be privatised and turned into a competitive and profitable organization such as were Air France and British Airways then that might be a matter of commercial common sense. Unfortunately it would appear that this is not likely to happen so the argument continues, why should public money in a country poor in social services, be thrown at what has been called a corrupt, badly managed, uncompetitive and overpaid government department. Where is the imperative in that?
Two fun but true examples might serve. The other day in March I wished to plan to trips from Johannesburg. One was to Sydney and the other to Buenos Aires. On that day and at that particular internet time, in each case it was cheaper, although more time consuming, to fly from JNB on KLM to AMS and then on to EZE or SYD than to fly to either EZE or SYD on SAA. So long as SAA continues to provide dreadful cabin services and to blatantly price gouge, it will never be competitive with first world carriers. Those who pay their taxes in South Africa are entirely entitled to eschew fly fishing or golf and to complain bitterly. Something needs to be done quite quickly as well because once the new, British copied, national health system arrives in South Africa, the tax payer base will not be sufficiently large to support two black holes.