Cape Town – The appointment of a permanent CEO at South African Airways (SAA) is only one step in bringing back the airline to financial health, said Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba in Parliament on Friday.
Gigaba made a few introductory remarks during a briefing of the standing committee on finance ahead of the SAA board’s official presentation on the national carrier’s finances and performance plan.
“The new CEO, important as it is, is only one step in a stream of decisions that we’ll need to make to address the challenges at SAA,” Gigaba said.
Gigaba said unless firm internal controls are established at the airline, it is likely to encounter the same problems over and over again. “We need to stabilise the governance process by filling up critical skills in the exco. We also need to flatten the structure of exco and management so that there are not too many layers to delay decision-making.”
He also said the incentive structure of SAA’s pilots cost the company “enormously” and the airline needs to consider this structure and compare it to other airlines of similar size.
“We need to question the productivity of our pilots compared to those of other airlines.”