To promnote electric propulsion Rolls Royce reached 387 mph with this electric racer.
working nights as hotel receptionists and of 20,000 hour Captains driving TLB back-actors and busses. As a group, the greatest victims are Senior First Officers, aged around 40, who have 15 or more years of service, but who were stuck at First Officer due to the lack of SAA growth. As the airline industry recovers, these SFOs, who have mortgages and children in expensive schools, will have to compete against 28-yearold Captains with 1000 hours of command, who have a low cost of living and can therefore accept much lower salaries. Our young airline columnist, Dassie van der Westhuizen, qualified as a Airbus A320 pilot but has had to go back to being cabin crew.
ever find a ‘Strategic Equity Partner’. Yet in June 2021, the South African government seemed to have pulled a rabbit out of the hat when it announced that, “after extensive talks with potential investors, they selected the Takatso Consortium. The Consortium will own 51% of the airline, while the government maintains a 49% stake. The Consortium involves Harith General Partners and Global Airways”. As a dowry, Pravin Gordhan, the Public Enterprises Minister, said that SAA will receive a R3.5 billion cash injection in the form of running costs from Harith. But now, five months later, they deal has still not been consummated and increasingly difficult questions are being asked about the true source of funding for the Taktso Consortium and the role of Gidon Novick as the CEO of the consortium with his Lift Airline. In November this year it seemed certain that Mango was to be sacrificed in favour of Lift with the loss of an important and by and large well-run domestic airline with 900 direct jobs.
SAA pilots turned out to be almost unemployable in the char ter mark et.
We know that things will never be the same again, but what will the new normal be? Full-service airlines have traditionally relied on the fat profit margin from business class, yet the number of business travellers has been reduced by as much as half due to the widespread adoption of webinars and online conferencing, instead of face-to-face meetings. SAA finally emerged from Business Rescue in June. There had been huge scepticism from commentators (me included) that SAA would
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December / January 2021/22
The South African government is like the physics conundrum of an irresistible cannonball hitting an immovable post. The cannonball is
