Could A Strike Be The End Of South African Airways?

With all due respect, it’s difficult for someone in the US to pass judgement on how things work in Africa. SAAs failings have nothing to do with their employees who gave given up a lot over the years to see the ANC backed management continue to run the carrier into their ground. If the staff can’t be paid appropriately (and the percentages you have quoted are irrelevant based on US standards... try looking at the cost of living increases in ZA and the devaluation of the rand) then the carrier needs to fold. Keeping SAA alive at the taxpayers expense is preventing a new carrier from starting, and impacting on the ability for Comair, Airlink and the country’s profitable airlines to grow.

One thing to remember is that inflation in South Africa is about 5% a year so either a 5.9% or 8% pay increase is not as substantial as it would be in other countries.
Hopefully they can turn it around after all these changes though.

No.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

Starting to think that the government should finally just let them die and put them out of their misery altogether. For their regional network, there are plenty of other domestic competitors that can step in to fill the void. For their longhaul network, they have very few routes where they are not already facing direct competition (I think maybe IAD is the only one). Foreign carriers can ramp up capacity pretty easily. Over time, Comair can potentially enter the longhaul market so that South Africans are not completely reliant upon foreign carrier (although I'm not sure long haul flying would be permitted in their licensing arrangement with BA...)

@sam
they cannot fly into Europe as BA but otherwise they might be able to

You dont know how it works down there in africa. The goverment will never let saa fall dawn. Its a big self service store for then. I someone need a position he gets it at Saa.
It doesent matter how much money they loose. The state is paying the bill

Father is scheduled to fly SAA IAD-JNB return this weekend. Are they offering to re-book on *A or other carriers? Really a PITA as this adds gobs of travel time vs direct.

Update FWIW: They suggested Ethiopian and Lufthansa (no surprise) but they didn’t object when I insisted on Qatar as that got him there when we needed, and while I’m sure it’s safe, I wasn’t a huge fan of him flying Ethiopian...

It's about time the government lets go of SAA. Thabo Mbeki was correct about the privatisation of this entity years ago. The private sector shoukd take over and goverment really needs to focus on social service delivery, Universal Health Coverage is upon us.

Sad news. I’m a fan of SAA having flown JNB GRU many times. I really enjoy the 330 business class pictured above with the brown seats. Tremendous amount of space, especially with the companion seat unoccupied, which is most of the time. Decent food and good wine.

Just another state enterprise that has failed under the ANC government. Eskom, the Railways and now the national airline. Cronyism and corruption is so rife down there I’m frankly amazed the airports still function