24 African Pilot April 2015
Airline Focus
Just under two years ago, SAA’s board was bragging about the tremendous
fi nd in appointing a ‘highly qualifi ed’ Monwabisi Kalawe to the CEO’s position.
This was after a series of past CEOs had failed to perform. Now SAA has the
correct person in Nico Bezuidenhout as the acting CEO and due to his vast
level of experience and insight into the airline business, ‘things’ are starting
to turn around at SAA.
In February Bezuidenhout hosted a media briefi ng where he outlined his plan
of action for the future of the airline and one of the most important remarks
he made was: “Any management team can pull the wool over the eyes of
its board and shareholders, but all that actually counts is the balance sheet,
which cannot be hidden away.” Hopefully the shareholder and the board of
SAA have learnt a valuable lesson in that no matter what ‘qualifi cations’ the
CEO may have, results are all that count. At the media briefi ng, Bezuidenhout
said that whilst it is business as usual at SAA, the implementation of the 90
Day Action Plan has seen immediate benefi cial commercial decision making
on the one end while cost-compression measures have been substantially
tightened to ensure that the business returns to relative stability.The Board and Management of SAA are intent on returning the business to
commercially sound competitive activity in the market. Bezuidenhout made it
absolutely clear that he had no intention of discussing the suspension of the
previous CEO Monwabisi Kalawe, one of several previous SAA CEOs over
the past 15 years who simply had no idea of how to manage an airline.Back left to right: Zuks Ramasia - SAA General Manager (GM) Operations, Tleli Makhetha - GM SAA Cargo, Wolf Meyer - SAA CFO,
Nico Bezuidenhout - SAA Acting CEO, Dudu Myeni - Chairperson of the SAA Board, Thuli Mpshe - GM Human Resources,
Musa Zwane - CEO SAA Technical, Sylvain Bosc - SAA Chief Commercial Offi cer, Ursula Fikelepi - SAA GM Legal, Phinda Ncala - SAA Chief Information Offi cer
In front: Bulelwa Koyana - CEO SATC, Fikile Thabethe - Head Legal, Martin Kemp - Acting CEO Air Chefs