The South African Airways (SAA) has been going through a lot of problems in the past few years and now the company is on hold due to lockdown announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa. The company operates local, international, inter-continental and continental airlines and is controlled and owned by the South African government.
The SAA is now operating under the SANDF as they are using the airline to repatriate South Africans who work away from South Africa. There are a lot of South Africans all over the world who are working there and now stranded in those countries due to the outbreak of the coronavirus and they have asked the South African government to help them as they can’t be able to come home on their own as all countries have closed their airports.
All airports in South Africa are closed for business and the SAA is using the SANDF Base for transportation of South Africans back home from other countries around the world. SAA is also being used to transport medical equipment from Europe and Asia as they cannot allow any private airline to be used. So far the SAA has also been used for transporting medical staff from other countries like recently were more than 200 Doctors were deployed by the South African government from Cuba.
The government owned airline is under a lot of problems in the country as they are about to be liquidates as they cannot get funding from the government but it seems the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus might be the savior for the airline as the government must have their own airline operating in order to build up the economy again as things are not well in the South African economy due to the outbreak of the virus.
President Cyril Ramaphosa just announced that all airlines in South Africa will operate partial in phase 3 of the lockdown which means that the SAA and other private airlines will operate again sometime end of May of in June 2020. Maybe by then the president would have made up his mind to help the SAA financially as they form part of restructuring by government after lockdown.
The SAA is also being used to transport the president to different parts of South Africa when he is needed to do so. The airline is now the backbone of the country and it is now that all South Africans can see the importance of having a government airline as other countries where South Africans are to be repatriated would not allow private owned airlines during their lockdowns.
