By: Natasha Archary

Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan has sent a firm message to South African Airways (SAA) employees that the airline isn’t going anywhere.
Urging employees to work as a team, Gordhan said he was confident that SAA would recapture market share and make enough profit to pay the government dividends.
On Monday, 18 March the Minister addressed the almost 2 000 staff complement at SAA, and spoke about route expansion plans for the airline.
“We should be grateful to government for the role it played to avoid liquidation. Our ambition is that SAA will make enough profit to pay the government dividends.
We have rebuilt the airline, and it will make profit that can support the fiscus instead of it looking for bailouts from government.
SAA is here to stay. SAA will grow. SAA will expand. Don’t allow negativity to come near us.”
Gordhan expressed confidence in the Board and Executive Management of SAA to steer the national flag carrier to greater heights.
It’s been 5-months since SAA relaunched after a tumultuous time in business rescue to prevent the airline’s complete collapse.
This resulted in a 16-month grounding of the airline in order to reduce operating expenses.
Almost 1 000 employees were laid off at the time but Gordha says if staff “work as a team” there would be a positive difference.
Gordhan said the Board, Executive Management and the shareholder were already engaged in efforts to help the airline raise funding to sustain its route expansion plans and the optimisation of its fleet to serve customers better.
The soon-to-be retired Minister said there will be zero tolerance to corruption of the entity, which celebrated its 90th anniversary last month.
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