South African Airways in 2012

[three eighty]

No more white cadet pilots for SAA | Fin24 (http://www.fin24.com/Companies/TravelAndLeisure/No-more-white-cadet-pilots-for-SAA-20120817)
Johannesburg - Cadet pilot training course applications from white men are no longer being accepted by South African Airways (SAA), it was reported on Friday.

SAA spokesperson Kabelo Ledwaba told Beeld that the cadet programme was being advertised online as an initiative to bring pilot demographics in line with the country's broader demographics.

"Only 15% of SAA's pilots are currently black, and this includes Indians and coloureds. The rest are white, and 91% of them are men."

Ledwaba said the airline would appoint male, white pilots when there were vacant posts for which applicants of other races could not be found.

Beeld had asked why white applicants were being rejected across the board.

An irate father had called the newspaper to complain that his son, who had a commercial pilot's licence and met the educational and physical criteria, had been rejected on the grounds of race.

By filling out several dummy applications, Beeld established that the online form had been programmed to reject any white applicants.

[cavortingcheetah]

Is Eskom up and operating again after implementing that racially sexist policy some years ago?

[Tableview]

As many have said, we still have discrimination on racial grounds. The only difference is that now the 'previously disadvantaged' are less skilled and educated (no fault of their own) but they are still being elevated into positions above their level of competence. It is a recipe for disaster.

[cavortingcheetah]

1994-2012
Why is it no fault of their own?
Speculation on the matter is probably as impolitic as is discussion of the state president's multi hued sex life but after two generations of school leavers since the day of independence the question seems one which, to use that dreadful hackneyed word, might be fair?

[Tableview]

It's largely no fault of their own because the ANC has followed the same policy as the Nats (ironic isn't it?) in keeping the masses uneducated. There are certainly better opportunities for blacks now than before, but there is a long way to go.

Also it takes two generations before the importance of education filters from parents to offspring. We're not quite there yet.

[cavortingcheetah]

But then, if Zuma and the ANC win the next election it will be their fault for having been so unenlightened as to vote in yet again those who shackle them to the past?

[Tableview]

As SA moves closerto being a one-party state, that may well be the outcome. The electorate is largely as unsophisticated and naive as it was when it voted the mob into power in 1994. Then, they at least had Mandela as a figurehead worthy of respect.

[stressmerchant]

1994-2012
Why is it no fault of their own?

in 1992 I applied for a position at SAA. My application was rejected, with the reason being something along the lines of "your employment at this company would not contribute towards the equity targets we have set ourselves". That was before the ANC even came to power!

[glorybusdriver]

Will this effect all the white pilots that went for interviews in the last 2 months at SAA?

[Ghost_Rider737]

Direct Entry Pilot applicants wont be affected .

[Nirak]

The worst position to be in is to be white and female

Too female for the whites, not trained in the SAAF (due to white male AA)

Too white for the new South Africa

Double whammy !

[308GT4]

Tableview, there are a couple of very big differences in stance between when the Nats took over in 1948, viz: The Nats made 80% of everything skin colour (i.e. you had to have a WHITE skin), but the remaining 20% was name (it had to be an Afrikaans name), then language (it had to be Afrikaans) and finally religion (it had to be Calvanistic/Protestant). With the current "ruling" government, EVERYTHING is skin colour!
The big significant difference in what the current government fails to get right is: The Nats(whom I never voted for, by the way) started by ELEVATING the standard of education at universities. They made it MORE DIFFICULT to pass! But, they also introduced Technicons, where you were awarded a National Diploma after successfully finishing a 3 year course of 6 months lectures followed by 6 months practical in a work place. Further, they opened MANY apprentice training colleges to formally train tradesmen, lots! They also introduced technical high schools for those who feel they prefer a technical education to one of say, bible studies and political science.......
The NET RESULT was that ~~AFTER~~ about 20 years, the South African professional could walk into a job anywhere in the world (if he was allowed in...bloody racist-agent-bastard) and just start practicing/working.
With the current ruling people, they think ONLY of what they can do and say to the electorate to ensure that they will be RE-ELECTED in the next election. i.e. LOWER the standards of education to get more "learners" to pass so that they can say "I am a doctor". But try now and walk into a job as a "doctor" outside of Africa???
But things are much better nowadays........
Dinosaur/intransigent/resistant to change etc etc etc.....

[Ghost_Rider737]

308GT4

Your post is by far the most non-biased factual piece of intellect I have read in a while. :D

SAA is an awesome company to fly for. My colleges and i are fortunate to work for such an organisation albeit it's political nature. I think SAA is the only airline in the world were 98% of the pilots are happy.

Although SAA is government run ultimately , it has been the most "on-time" carrier in SA. A passenger flying on SAA can be assured of their travel plans (not so sure about their baggage though LOL) and Aircraft dispatch reliability.

I hope this cadet programme race crap is sorted out ASAP and does little to tarnish what's left of SAA's credibility.

[Tableview]

308GT4 (http://www.pprune.org/members/245126-308gt4)

Good points, but my point too remains valid. Although you say the ANC are educating people, but the quality is low, barriers have been lowered, and the 'qualifications' are worthless. As you said, in the old days, an SA qualification and education were highly regarded throughout the world.

Your point about[I] the South African professional could walk into(if he was allowed in...:mad: [/ a job anywhere in the world I] is a good one too. I had a black American girl on my team who treated me like crap becuase I was 'a white racist South African'. She then told me that all white South Africans are racist and couldn't see the irony in that statement until I asked her if it would then be fair to say that all blacks are muggers and druggies.

As for our airlines, I love SAA, even though I've had some flights on which the service has been appalling, it's been more than compensated by those where the service was warm, friendly, and Proudly South African!

[Alternative]

I fail to understand the huge outcry, what is the difference with the current policy as opposed to their policy held in the past wrt to Cadet Pilot Scheme. At most, I think there were only 2-3 white males that went through the program since inception. The cadet program was created to address the issue of there not being enough people of colour being represented at SAA! Please note SAA has not closed its doors to white males and continues and will do so in the forseeable future, ie, interview and hire white males. As stated in the past one only needs to look at the number of white males hired during the hire feast of late 2010,early 2011 and the current individuals that are being interviewed. SAA hires approx 30 pilots a year, rest assured at the most only half of this positions will be filled by cadets the rest will be open to all suitably qualified South Africans as has been the case for the last 18 years.

[Ghost_Rider737]

In the year that I joined(less than 5 yrs ago)SAA hired over 60 pilots. Of which 40 were white male. purely because there just aren't enough people from all demographics to interview.


Guys get over yourselves. SAA is an equal opportunities employer.

[i-Robot]

The cadet pilot programme has very little to do with, ultimately getting the nod to join the company. I can tell you from first hand experience, that it doesn't matter what colour you are, if you do not meet the recruitment requirements (interview, sim check, psychometric) when the time comes. You do not get in. There are a number of "black" and "white" pilots who did not make it through the selection process.

This shouldn't matter, however, and by the way, the cadet-pilot manager is a retired "white" former SAA captain. So, it is unfair to lambast an entire company for the actions of a single project team.

Nevertheless, I do have a serious problem with such blatant racism, which violates the very principles of employment equity. I still struggle to understand how recruiters/human resource clerks expect applicants to determine their "race", when they design application forms. To me, you would need to be a trained anthropologist to only begin deciphering where and how one would differentiate based on the complexities of genetic make-up. I hope the person/persons responsible for making such an uninformed decision on the e-application get educated, and summarily dismissed.

[Trossie]

SAA lifts ban on white cadets | Fin24 (http://www.fin24.com/Companies/TravelAndLeisure/SAA-lifts-ban-on-white-cadets-20120819-2)

Does "applications from white men would not automatically be rejected" mean that they will still not 'automatically be ignored'?

[flyingwerks]

Air Zimbabwe v.2.0

[Shrike200]

It means that white male applicants won't be 'automatically rejected', just 'rejected'. They simply did away with the 'automatically' part :E

This is for the cadet program only. Kind of understandable, give the fixation on race and the fact that PDI's (we're going to have to invent a new term here, will we still be using 'PDI' in 50 years time?) often can't pay the cost of training. Then again, nor could a lot of people I know who still managed to get their CPL....plus a there are a LOT of 'PDI's' who are MUCH wealthier than my family ever was or will be....this is what you get when you classify by race I guess. Welcome to SA(A)! :)

[Solid Rust Twotter]

Old story - two wrongs don't make a right. Making the same mistake again and expecting a different outcome doesn't say much for their intelligence, I'm afraid.

[Tableview]

In mid-August the national airline, South African Airways (SAA), put up online advertisements for the training of cadet pilots. The trade union Solidarity put in two applications with exactly the same qualifications and backgrounds except for one crucial fact: One was white and the other black.
The white applicant immediately received a rejection letter while the black applicant progressed up the vetting system.
A massive storm broke out over the issue, with South Africa's largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, saying the practice takes "our reconciliation project backwards".


.... but there's a lot more to it ........ full story here :

BBC News - Viewpoint: Does race matter in South Africa? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19402353)

[Shrike200]

Yet another private-sector competitor in the airline market looks set to collapse in a tough market, under sustained predatory behaviour from the state-owned giant, South African Airways. If we ever want to be free of government monopolies, decent private companies need our support.

It’s the age-old story all over again, isn’t it? When domestic air travel was deregulated in 1991 a venerable name in South African aviation, Trek Airways, most famous for its inexpensive Luxavia joint venture, promptly acquired four new Airbus A320 aircraft and launched Flitestar, a service connecting Johannesburg with both Durban and Cape Town.

With competitive prices and good service, it promptly wrested a quarter of the market from the state-owned monopoly, South African Airways, which was forced to remove some of its aircraft from domestic service.

This, SAA did not like. It embarked on what veteran industry-watcher Paul Dubois calls “dirty tricks” to regain the upper hand. According to his article on Flitestar’s history these included blocking aircraft on airport aprons to cause delays, ratcheting up mechanical service fees and commissions to travel agents, arranging priority treatment by air traffic controllers and even sabotaging the national ticketing system, Safari, to show Flitestar flights as being full.

Flitestar may have jolted a lethargic state-owned monopoly into improving service somewhat, but by the time elections came around in 1994, the upstart had already closed its doors. In the wake of its liquidation, according to Dubois, SAA paid “in excess of R90-million to Trek Airways shareholders, Rentmeester Beleggings, SAFREN and the de Moelenaer family to cease operating ‘any’ airline service in competition with SAA for five years.”

The New South Africa would not begin with competition in the airline sector.

A year later, Phoenix Airways arose, but soon returned to the ashes, leaving only a wispy memory. It would go on to become a bidder in the privatisation of Sun Air in 1997 in a process that was heavily rigged in favour of SAA.

In a 1,500-page doctoral thesis on the competitiveness (or the lack thereof) in the domestic air transport market, transport economist Joachim Vermooten quoted Mac Maharaj, Transport Minister from 1994 to 1999, as saying: “I would like a South African investor or consortium to buy [Sun Air], but I would check carefully to ensure it isn't a front for a large foreign airline... That would give them a strategic foothold here and enable them to undercut South African Airways.”

How horrible! Passengers might have to pay less!

It was clear that SAA was going to get government protection and that real competition was the last thing on Maharaj’s mind.

The anti-competitive tactics that worked against Flitestar worked against Sun Air too. Among other predatory moves, like controlling landing and apron slots, SAA artificially increased capacity on routes operated by Sun Air, sparking a price war.

Vermooten explained how that worked: “[SAA] has not achieved an adequate return on assets and has received substantial financial state aid without any published conditions that would mitigate the anti-competitive effect of such state aid and promote competition in the air transport market. The risk of such state aid could enable the dominant state-owned airline, SAA, to deploy too much capacity on an uneconomical basis, operate many services at a lower income level than the cost of providing such services, dump excess capacity on competitive routes at a lower fare than needed to provide a reasonable return on assets, and conduct operations with the objective of earning a lower return on investment than would be required as a reasonable return on assets by competitors that are subject to normal financial markets and do not receive state financial aid.”

Sun Air ceased operations 1999, and SAA ticket prices quickly returned to their usual high levels.

Even the demise of its rival wasn’t good enough for SAA, however. Without even bothering with the required approval from government, it engineered a takeover of shares and debt designed to prevent the Sun Air liquidation from going to court, where the assets might be sold to potential competitors. While Maharaj worried about Singapore Airlines or British Airways running Sun Air, SAA feared a takeover of its distressed assets by Virgin Atlantic and KLM, both of which were sniffing for opportunities to challenge inefficient state-owned airlines in emerging markets like South Africa.

A day after it was purchased by SAA, Sun Air was shut down, though Coleman Andrews, the SAA chief executive at the time, denied having anything to do with it. That is a lie. At least, one can safely assume it must be a lie, because if it is true, it is evidence of gross negligence. Even notoriously predatory monopolists don’t accidentally acquire and shut down rivals in the ordinary course of business.

Once Sun Air had been driven under, SAA reprised its nasty little deal with Flitestar’s shareholders, and paid R50 million to Safair, the leasing company that owned the Sun Air aircraft, to keep the aircraft out of the hands of would-be domestic competitors.

Andrews would go on to abscond with a golden handshake worth R230-million, even though the state-owned airline was booking massive losses and fraud allegations were swirling all about.

“According to the editor of the Business Day, the result of the demise of Sun Air was higher domestic airfares, hundreds of people joining unemployment queues and an increasingly weary [sic] international investment community,” Vermooten wrote.

Rather too late, SAA was slapped with a R45 million Competition Commission fine. It had been found guilty of employing another tactic it first used against Flitestar, bribing travel agents, in its rivalry with Sun Air. “Loyalty rebates”, is what SAA delicately called these blatant kickbacks.

The fine was the largest the Competition Commission had issued to date, but it must have hit the state-owned airline like the tip on an expense claim for a Coleman Andrews dinner. SAA was quick to recover from this slap on the wrist.

While its lawyers were still mumbling niceties about never ever doing anything naughty again, it set its sights on Nationwide Airlines. This was the oldest of the three remaining private airlines, having been founded in 1995. Along with Kulula, established in 2001, and 1Time, founded 2004, it was using low-cost airline strategies to try to compete with the voracious government behemoth.

In addition to all the nice state-sponsored benefits it enjoys, however, like being bailed out whenever it failed to make a profit because it had been undercutting private competitors, SAA launched its own low-cost airline in 2006.

SAA’s little anti-competitive spawn was inexplicably called Mango. It got a fleet of nice hand-me-down aircraft from its sugar daddy, along with a lifelong service deal from its nice uncle, SAA Technical.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Nationwide and the other private airlines had to buy aircraft and pay for them by running a profitable business.

In the face of predatory pricing, over-capacity on competitive routes and having to park a half-hour bus ride from airport terminal buildings, Nationwide bravely kept flying until bits of its aircraft started to fall off. Then it shut its doors, too.

Notch another one up for SAA. (While we’re counting, add a notch for Velvet Sky, which launched a low-cost domestic service and went bankrupt while I was outside for a quick smoke.)

Flitestar, Phoenix, Sun Air, Nationwide, Velvet Sky. Now 1Time has its back against the wall. In the face of tough market conditions and high fuel prices, it filed for what it calls a “business rescue”, which is essentially bankruptcy protection.

1Time said it would continue scheduled services while it pitches a restructuring plan to its investors and creditors, designed to address heavy debt under loss-making conditions. However, I have tickets for George to Johannesburg today, returning tomorrow, and I’m nervous. Airlines that announce trouble don’t have a good record of hanging around to fly passengers to where they’re supposed to be.

SAA’s financials, meanwhile, though in better shape than a few years ago, remain worrying. Its cash flow remains negative to the tune of a billion rand a year or so, and several pages are devoted to its non-compliance with various financial laws and to its weak defences against a raft of local and global competition accusations. However, its operating profit is back in the black, which means 1Time and Kulula can expect a lot more walloping from the big government bully.

Those of us who use airlines in South Africa know what happens on routes that are not subject to competition by private airlines. If SAA or the cartel partners it acknowledges in its annual report, SA Airlink and SA Express, are your only options, expect to pay several times more for a short hop than you’d pay for a ticket on a competitive route. Try flying from Durban to Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein to East London, or George to Cape Town if you want real “sticker shock”.

We know, from our own experience with the likes of Telkom and Eskom, how state-owned enterprises without adequate competition drive up price inflation and deliver shoddy quality. We know how ports, railways and other government infrastructure monopolies drive up prices and limit our ability to move commodities and compete in global markets.

The anti-competitive rot goes deep. That SAA has only ever been nailed for one kind of anti-competitive behaviour on two occasions, paying only token fines, suggests that competition authorities are simply not equipped to deal with the problem.

Vermooten agrees: “No specific guidance currently exists in the domestic air transport industry in South Africa relating to the particular forms of conduct that would be regarded as having an anti-competitive effect. No measures currently exist in South Africa that enable the competition authorities to respond timeously (as required in the airline industry) to prevent anti-competitive or predatory conduct, to stop such conduct (in contravention of those guidelines) by means of cease and desist orders and effective interim orders where there is a danger that competition will be eliminated.”

This leaves us, the passengers, as the last bulwark against a time when SAA will once again have the African sky—and access to our pockets—all to itself. We can stand around waiting until SAA has murdered 1Time too, or we can use what little power we have against state-owned monopolies and vote with our wallets.

Never buy a ticket from the state-owned monster, SAA, or its misbegotten whelp, Mango, if you have a choice. Prefer a private competitor, and given its precarious position right now, give your money to 1Time if you can.

It’s the least you can do for your country.

Meanwhile, I’ll be sitting at the airport, hoping the last time I saw 1Time wasn’t the last time 1Time flew.

Another viewpoint.

[slotsdown]

Should the white blokes be refused entry into the flight deck because the "blacks" aren't generally interested in flying? :=

This is pathetic to see from SAA. It is a right for any citizen to apply for whatever job - regardless of race; and be accepted because of their competency!

This might seem controversial, but black south africans aren't interested in aviation, hence why you have 91% being white. If you want blacks in the industry then tell the blacks about aviation. The ignorance of the blacks is what's making the white blokes being 91%, It's not being racist!!

The South African Government must wake up and smell the coffee. Black South Africans are ignorant about these type of jobs. I bet a million quid that the current applicants are a hand full.