SAA CEO steps down
31 minutes ago James-Brent Styan



SAA plane

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Cape Town - Siza Mzimela, CEO of embattled national carrier South African Airways (SAA) has announced her resignation.

She sent an email to SAA employees on Monday morning, stating “this is not a random move”.*

“I have given this decision careful thought and feel that now is the best time to relinquish my position as your CEO and allow somebody else to pilot the company into the future.”

Mayihlome Tshwete, spokesperson for the minister of public enterprises, has confirmed that the department has knowledge of the email sent by Mzimela.

“At this stage we’re still trying to reach the chairman to determine if he has received her formal letter of resignation.”

SAA has been in the news the past month following the resignation of eight board members including the chairperson, Cheryl Carolus. The board has since been replaced.

Business Day reported on Monday that SAA made a loss of R1.25bn in the 2012 financial year. Mzimela does not mention this in her email.

Mzimela joined SAA in May 2010, after heading up South African Express Airways (SAX). In 2011 she became the first woman to be appointed to the International Air Transport Association’s board of directors in 67 years.

SAA has seen a mixed bag of results under Mzimela, showing two years of profit in 2010 and 2011. The airline has however been plagued with a weak balance sheet.

The two best candidates to take over the post of CEO from Mzimela are probably SAX chief executive Inathi Ntshanga and Nico Bezuidenhout, CEO of SAA’s low-cost carrier Mango. Other names that may come under consideration include Alison Crookes, head of SAA’s affiliate Air Chefs, and Theunis Potgieter, SAA commercial head.

- Fin24

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saa *|* siza mzimela

Mmmmmmm........that little empire is rocking!

When are the idiots going to wake up and realise that SAA is just a big inneficient money pit.

PRIVATISE IT.

Privatise it! Who is going to risk that amount of money in a bottomless pit? South Africa's 'democratic' 'affirmative action' policies mean it could never function as a profitable entity.

*Arms golden parachute* Eject, eject, eject!!

Why do people always compare the losses caused by corruption/inefficiency/fraud/crime to the number of RDP houses you could have bought with the money? Hell, R17bn could buy every man, woman and child in this entire country a case of beer!

You can't privatise SAA - its too far gone. To make it efficient you would need government guarantees for restructuring because you would have to thoroughly audit the entire operation which takes time, which would presumably lead to you retrenching about half of the staff and restructuring the whole company. And as has been said, with SA's ridiculous AA policies it is destined to fail.

About ten years ago on here I said to watch SAA - it is a microcosm of the country as a whole - what happens at SAA will happen or is happening to SA in general. Destination? Down the tubes. Unless the affirmative action policies are changed, it's tickets.

Tonight on News24


DA: Gigaba must privatise SAA

Author: Sapa
Published: October 8, 2012, 16:17:59
Johannesburg - Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba must consider privatising SA Airways (SAA) to prevent the airline being grounded, the DA said on Monday.

"The endemic dysfunctional nature of SAA has sapped public coffers for too long. Enough is enough," Democratic Alliance MP Natasha Michael said in a statement.

"The idea of a state-backed national carrier has flown its course and must now be grounded. Surely, privatisation is the obvious alternative."

The party's comments come in the wake of an announcement on Monday that SAA chief executive Siza Mzimela has resigned from the company.

Michael said Gigaba should meet with the DA "as a matter of urgency" to discuss privatising the airline.

"The former CEO has presided over an airline characterised by spiralling debts, operational inefficiencies, and an entrenched reliance on bailouts from the National Treasury," she said.

"These factors have finally brought the wasteful airline to its knees. The airline is now well and truly in a crisis."

She said it was "no exaggeration" that SAA could find itself grounded by the end of the year.

Gigaba's office confirmed Mzimela's resignation on Monday.

"Yes we have received the resignation. We have accepted the resignation, but it was not with immediate effect," said Gigaba's spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete.

"She will remain with us for some weeks until we find a suitable person to act in the interim."

Mzimela was appointed CEO in February 2010.

SAA spokesman Tlali Tlali could not confirm the resignation when contacted for comment.

The Business Day website BDLive reported on Monday that Mzimela had described her resignation to her staff as "not a random move".

"I have given this decision careful thought and feel that now is the best time to relinquish my position as your CEO and allow somebody else to pilot the company into the future," she was quoted as saying by the website.

Mzimela's resignation comes weeks after SAA's chairwoman Cheryl Carolus and six board members resigned.

Gigaba said he had only learnt about the mass resignation from media reports.

SAA was expected to report a R1.25bn loss for the year ended March 31, when it holds its annual general meeting next week.

Last week, the airline won support from National Treasury after hard negotiations between it and the public enterprises department to support the airline, which according to the previous board has a debt to equity ratio of -359%, the website reported.

Treasury agreed to a R5bn guarantee to enable SAA to borrow from financial markets.

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Would it do any good to privatise SAA? You'll still have the little govt merry-go-round telling you who you can and can't employ, based solely on race. Merit isn't even a consideration and is regarded as a dirty word by those in power.

I wonder why SAA need a CEO or board of directors anyway ??

The government do as they please .....:ugh:

Every time SA has an election a new cabinet is elected and you then have to educate another so called minister on how to run an airline.......THIS IS SHOCKING .....

That's why SAA and other parastatals lose billions.....case closed !!!!:ugh::ugh:

SAA does make a profit but the excessive labour force and inflated executive salaries make it somewhat ungovernable. The debt to equity ratio which is claimed to be at -359% was due to Mr Coleman Andrews....he sold of every aircraft owned by SAA as well as maintenance equipment and leased them back to improve the then balance sheet.
At the moment SAA owns very little , and leases a lot.

How do you expect our outgoing CEO to turn that around in her short 3 year tenure ?
She had no support from Mr Gigaba and he left them with empty promises of government support....as in a proper cash injection and not a stupid guarantee.
SAA will continue as per normal and not much will change .

If they did that there might be some hope for success. The problem is that they appoint someone purely on how far up the ANC's collective backside they are.

Ghost Rider737

You may have to take a pay cut or have to go and work for CX :{

don't be so sure...
 

Tableview said "As long as SA has a government, or what passes for one, SAA will exist for their mutual benefit."

Yes. We used to think that about Air Zimbabwe, too.

It doesn't matter how far you have to fall. Terminal Velocity is Terminal Velocity.

Former SAA chief executive to sue ex-chair for defamation | Business | Mail & Guardian

Ngqula was the man who went to Airways Towers by helicopter. There were a number of other allegations about how he milked the company during his tenure of power there, and how useless he was. I worked for SAA at the time and heard that used to sleep in meetings, when he awoke it was only to display his ignorance of, and lack of interest in, the airline industry. He made Coleman Andrews look like a benefactor!

Rumour is that the CPT LON flight may soon be re-introduced. If they run it on the same basis as the other LON flights it's not going to make money, as the high revenue seats be filled with friends of those in high places.

Table view.........SAA management sold the slot into LHR. How do you suppose we gonna get the slot back ? .

"According to the report, Heathrow slots are worth their time in gold at an estimate R300-million, and are so difficult to come by that SAA will more than likely not be able to acquire it again in the future. The last time Heathrow allocated a new morning slot was in 1997.

SAA commercial general manager Theunis Potgieter has confirmed the deal but the buyer or the selling price has not been made known.

According to Potgieter, SAA did try to rent it out since the times are not transferable between airlines and must either sold or leased out.

Preference was given to other African airlines but "unfortunately we were unsuccessful. The result was that SAA put the slot up for sale and an agreement was finally entered into.”

This SAA slot at 6:20am at the world’s busiest international airport, is especially valuable because of landing time which gives business travellers a full day to do business in London."

That very valid point was brought up in the conversation which took place over dinner last night. I don't know the answer and can only assume that more taxpayers' money will go into the purchase of the slot, if indeed one is available, or they may have to review the flight times, possibly making it a daylight flight northbound with an immediate turnaround to minimise the ground time. That assumes that evening slots in and out would be available.

Just wondering if the Air Zimbabwe and Nationwide slots are still available in Gatwick.........;)

SAA and the R550-million bailout | News | National | Mail & Guardian

South African Airways received an emergency loan to cover fuel costs, preventing the grounding of its local and international flights over the Christmas/New Year period.

Still, it's only taxpayers' money so who cares. Plenty more where that comes from .......... until all the wit mense have left the country.

Credit
 

So correct me here please....... SAA's operating cost, fuel, was in danger of not being paid, so they go to the venerable 'minister' for a "loan". 3 Months apparently. mmmm. So, in 3 months, SAA is such a sterling profit generating- thing, that it will generate sufficient profit at the end of the 3 months to be able to pay back the last cent of R530 000 000 plus interest. Mmmm, Warren Buffet, George Soros, you guys are losing out badly! Here in the good old South AFRICA, we have an AIRLINE which is doing so well that their net profit in a short 3 months is enough to repay a loan/letter of credit to the tune of more than half a billion Rand! AGAIN already!!!!!:D:D:D

SAL v SAA
 

This is WAY past the point of being ridiculous.

SAL was a source of pride. Even with embargo's and over flight restrictions they did remarkably well considering they were forced to buy new aircraft to keep routes open. Yes, they didn't make loads of money and also had to ask the tax payer to bail them out with a loan once or twice but that is just what it was, a loan that had to be paid back. I know this for a fact. Point is they were held ACCOUNTABLE!!!!

SAA now, people are appointed were they don't belong, they squander what they don't have cause money is after all only a piece of paper printed by the machine at the bank. They abuse what the hand that feeds cause there is no accountability whatsoever.

I reckon the ship can still be saved from going under and get back to being very profitable but for that to happen they need to get the right people at the helm. For that this BEE nonsense needs to be abolished. I'm not saying don't appoint black people, by all means if he/she can actually do the job and can be held accountable do that, but appoint the person who can do the job in it not just because he/she is a government correct friend. They are out there. If government can realize that and let the people who know what they are doing go, the ship should be able to right itself.

If the will and vision is there, a way can be found but without that in place the cycle is just going to continue. And looking at the visionless government, it doesn't seem it will end any time soon. Sad really!

ANOTHER bail-out for SAA!!!
 

The anti-SAA whinge brigade are at it again! Being critical of the pilots salaries at SAA clearly indicates that you belong to the 'Failed to get into SAA and I'm now I'm a bitter and twisted individual club'. Let me guess you either A. Failed an SAA interview, B. Stayed in the SAF to long and the best you could do was get into Comair or something similar or C. Never even got invited to an interview due to your unimpressive CV. I bet your unions are quick to use SAA salaries as a bench mark when it's salary negotiation time.

Get over yourselves, you just don't have what it takes. Losers!