Alan Peat
THE SENIOR management reshuffle at SAA is not likely to reverse the airline's move out of cargo, according to executives in the airfreight agents sector.
This follows previous c.e.o. Coleman Andrews' premature exit from his contract and his replacement by former finance executive, Andre Viljoen. To that can be added the reported replacement of present SAA chairman Bheki Sibiya by Real Africa Holdings chairman Don Ncube.
But, said Peter Krafft, m.d. of Ršhlig Grindrod
and perishable airfreight specialists, Ršhlig PCA, they've really got out of freight and into passenger. And that's not likely to be reversed overnight.
Gavin Cooper, m.d. of Seair Freight, and chairman of SAAFF (SA Association of Freight Forwarders) in the Cape, agrees.
It's no longer a cargo airline of any consequence, he said. With Andrews' bias towards passengers, they've got into a corner that'll take a long time to get out of.
Both commentators refer to the fact that SAA has got rid of all its freight-friendly Airbus aircraft and replaced them with the restricted cargo capacity of Boeing 737s.
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They're obviously not interested in freight any more, said Krafft, with these small capacity regional aircraft just not suited to freight.
This, Krafft added, along with SAA's unattractive pricing for cargo, has seen most of the airfreight cargo bound for-and-from Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban going overnight by road.
There's even a similar move to road for Cape cargoes, Cooper added. We're going to regret the Boeing 737s, he said.
Cooper also questions Andrews' achievements in the c.e.o. role, where he
is credited with having reversed SAA from being a R1.7-billion operation teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, to a profitable air carrier worth about R9-bn.
All very well as a short-term number crunching exercise, according to Cooper, but what of the future?
Andrews has been a turnaround whizz-kid, he said, but at what cost.
They've replaced the Airbuses, sold off their international freighters, off-loaded their fleet of 13 Boeing 737s to Safair on a charter-back basis, got rid of a number of other non-core assets, and cashed in on their large supply of spares when they sold off the lucrative spare parts division.
What is really left at SAA? asked Cooper.
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