The struggling Ass-Ways was slapped with the fine after an investigation by the Competition Tribunal. SAA’s misconduct was in contravention of the Competition Act. The tribunal found that the airline used its dominance and incentive agreements with travel agents to divert potential passengers to SAA flights at the expense of its rivals.
Add this to the R1-billion case brought against SAA by Comair on a similar basis, which is to be heard soon and South African taxpayers can look forward to further financial support of a national carrier whose Zuma management has done its (her) utter best to drag a once proud airline airline through their collective asses.
Meanwhile the former Nationwide CEO has told the Citizen newspaper he is convinced that SAA is still ‘using every trick in the book’ to eliminate competition and doing it with taxpayers’ money.
Vernon Bricknell, who founded Nationwide Airline in 1995 and led it until it stopped operations and went into liquidation in 2008, is ready to apply for the liquidation of SAA if the national carrier fails to pay more than R104 million in damages to Nationwide.
SAA’s precarious financial situation is well known. It has not published financial statements for 2014/15 or 2015/16 due to going concern issues and has only R99 million of its government guarantees still available. In December SAA requested a further R4.5 billion guarantee, but National Treasury has been reluctant to respond unless a new board is appointed.
Colin J. Fryer of Centre Stage Travel in Cape Town told TourismUpdate.co.za nobody needs reminding the that SAA board has asked government for a R5-billion guarantee to cover its liabilities.
