[imagesource: Facebook / Mango]

It’s no secret that South African Airways (SAA) has had its wings clipped due to years of ruinous mismanagement, turning it into a seemingly never-ending cycle of taxpayer bailouts.

Just ask Phil Parsons, the now ex-SAA pilot whose Facebook post from last week went viral.

Mango, the low-cost state-owned airline, hasn’t fared much better in recent times, and was recently placed under business rescue by the board and shareholders.

At present, according to Moneyweb, Mango is currently operating only two aircraft:

It’s using these for return flights on three routes daily, in other words for six flights a day. These flights are between Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

While Port Elizabeth, East London, Bloemfontein and Zanzibar exist as options on its website, there are no scheduled flights to these destinations.

In the last round of funds released to SAA and its subsidiaries (just the R10,5 billion), Mango was due to receive R819 million, but it’s not clear if it did receive that money.

The true depth of the crisis became publicly apparent when flights didn’t take off on April 28, due to the airline having outstanding debts with Airports Company South Africa (ACSA).

In May, the airline said it was operating three of its fleet of aircraft. Of the rest of its fleet, it said that four aircraft were in storage maintenance, five were undergoing “heavy check maintenance” and two had been returned to their lessors…

There has been ample speculation that some of Mango’s leased aircraft in ‘storage’ are not in a position to fly before outstanding maintenance is completed. It is effectively flying with the only planes that are able to operate.

Trade unions, acting on behalf of Mango’s staff, have been forced to approach the high court, citing “the desperate situation which our members and all employees find themselves in”.

The Daily Maverick reports:

Mango did not pay salaries to its workers in June. And since April 2020, Mango workers have been receiving partial salary payments because the airline’s financial situation has worsened…

Mango already faces a court application from its creditor for the airline to be placed under liquidation, which would involve the airline permanently closing its doors and assets being sold to pay outstanding debts. It’s not clear how much money Mango owes creditors because its audited financial statements are never released for public consumption.

What a mess.

In January 2020, Mango had 22% of the local market share, which had shrunk to 14% by April of this year.

Now that it’s operating just the two aircraft, that share will have shrunk further.

[sources:moneyweb&dailymav]