The reason appears to be that SAA have too many people working for them and that the business simply cannot afford all the personnel – or shall we call them “hangers on”.
Many of the SAA employees fall into the “protected employees” category. Those that simply have a job and do very little or even nothing to substantiate their worth. Like many people in government. Then we also have the Employment Act preventing the SAA from getting rid of useless employees. Add to this the worst of affirmative action, and you have created the perfect storm.
In business it is important to keep staff numbers to a minimum. At SAA this principle does not seem to ring true.
The statistics we publish below, was received from a reader and we did not test the figures, but it does make an interesting read and is certainly something worth more investigating.
Our reader conducted a website search of airlines (listed below) to gauge the total number of employees at that airline, measured against their total number of aircraft in the fleet. He simply divided the total number of employees by the total number of aircraft in the fleet which in turn indicated how many employees in the airline are employed PER AIRCRAFT in the fleet.
We take note that the “research” was not conducted in any depth and some of the numbers below reflect from 2010 2012, so it is not conclusive. Bet her is what he found:
1) QANTAS (Australian): 32,500 employees with a total of 252 aircraft = 129 employees per aircraft
2) American Airlines: 87, 897 employees with a total of 618 aircraft = 142 employees per aircraft
3) Delta Airlines: 106,216 employees with a total of 722 aircraft = 147 employees per aircraft
4) British Airways: 36,832 employees with a total of 238 aircraft = 154 employees per aircraft
5) United Airlines: 115,149 employees with a total of 710 aircraft = 162 employees per aircraft
6) South African Airways: 55,500 employees with a total of 58 aircraft = 957 employees per aircraft
No wonder we regularly report on SAA and how they need government bailouts. Or more accurately, how they need tax payers (that means you) to bail them out.
