Number of flights won't be reduced says finance manager WITH A first quarter operating loss of R98-million, SAA has been forced to take a long, hard look at its international schedule, according to Eric Wasserman, executive manager (finance).
And it's on the international aviation services that most of the loss has been incurred, he added.
The drop in the currency has really impacted (on the airline's costing and profit/loss) and traffic growth has been lower than we expected, Wasserman told FTW. It is now very expensive for South Africans to go abroad, and incoming visitors seem to have been put off by such things as the crime rate. The recent international increase in aviation fuel prices has hit SAA along with all the other international air carriers, and a 20% drop in the value of the rand against the US$ (in which all aviation costs are quoted) has added its own share of woes.
While no decisions have yet been taken, Wasserman is sure that the airline will not be reducing its number of flights. It is likely to rationalise, though, and reduce the number of destinations called-on by certain flights, he added.
For this, we are looking at designating certain destinations as hubs, and co-operating with alliance partners in feeding passengers/cargo to other destinations in the same area on the hub-and-spoke system, Wasserman said.
