SAA further suspends services until April 30

South African Airways (SAA) will continue its suspension of domestic services until at least April 30. The beleaguered airline stated that this suspension gives them ‘the opportunity to concentrate on moving forward our much publicised business rescue process.’

‘Amongst other benefits this process aims to produce a right sized, customer centric airline; designed to be lean, technology savvy, digitally native and agile to service all market segments,’ the airline added.

The announcement comes as a surprise after Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan recently said that SAA might exit business rescue by the end of February.

The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) said it has identified a number of equity partners for SAA, but negotiations seem to make little progress.

‘We are still discussing but I would say we have not made the expected progress,’ Ethiopian Airlines (a potential partner) CEO, Tewolde Gebremariam said according to Tourism Update.

‘As the world continues to roll out vaccines and study its efficacy amidst a mutating virus, economic activity needs to be resumed. Like many countries, South Africa continues to review restrictions on regular intervals,’ the airline concluded.