Make domestic air travel affordable first. Current fairs from KMIA Nelspruit to Cape Town same cost as flights to Europe. This makes NO sense. Have not used SAA for ten years as internationally there are just so many other better carriers.

The Route from KMIA to Cape Town is not operated by SAA. It is Operated by Airlink. Privately owned airline

I have instructed my staff not to book SAA tickets. In my opinion, SAA should be sold off in its entirety to ensure a sustainable, profitable airline. Until then, it's a no go.

They can restructure as much as they like. As long the mind set is totally wrong nothing will change and no SAA with be coming out of the swamp.
Their client service is louzy (not to mention the on board crew has attitude) and they are always the most expensive option.
As said before, I did not have one single client flying SAA in the past 10 years unless the aircraft was hired by a partner or another airline.
Holding on to SAA is not on prestige for the country, it is a milking cow for corrupt politicians and their 'comrades'.
SAA is a brain dead body that is kept alive by machines, machines not ran on Eskom but on tax payer money.

Anyone buying SAA tickets must have their heads read
1.There is rumour of insurers pulling the plus
2.They have no credibility. If they cancel your flight how do they pay another airline to carry you
3. They are not required - we have more than enough alternatives
4. Don't support a useless SOE that has done nothing but harm to SAA and cost you a lot of mulla as taxpayer
Let them go to the wall.

SAA is not a national airline, it is a NATIONAL DISASTER. Get out of the skies SAA, you are wasting my TAX money!

Austrian Airlines has been one year in red figures and there has been immediate action on management, in the 2. year of negative figures, it has been sold. Swiss air has been sold because of bad management, both companies are now working with profit. Why is government trying to run businesses, they should govern and not be entrepreneurs. Why is Gordhan asking the population to support mismanaged companies! Another one having no idea of going ahead. Sadly, I will not support SAA.

Working in Lagos, l stopped flying SAA from ORT due to the hassle, poor service, cost and always felt l was being ripped off as on my return my flight was always changed to Mango for the CPT leg.
I now have to go to Maputo. On SAA the cost is R1000 more than TAM for a 1 hour flight - R2000 return. Then l will be put on a Mango flight but charge full rate back to CPT.
WHY support and Flyy SAA?

Its the unions vs the functioning economy of SA (or malfunctioning economy). Our minister and his team need to break the current "workers" ransom economy or we will all go bust.

SAA is savable with privatisation in part - but is it worth it. Close it up and then take the unions on in SA who have been the dog wagging the countries tail for over 25 years now. Do the unions have the voting power on their own as a political party to continue to ruin our country without hiding behind the ANC and plying puppet master? I doubt it. But the politicians of all walks of life play their games, enrich themselves and fail to make good decisions for our country to flourish as it can and should.

So we have Eskom, SAA, etc. - a unionised ransom entitled economy.

Besides rampant corruption, one of the main problems is the bloated staff complement, as with Eskom. Tough call though it might be, staff numbers simply have to be reduced to realistic and necessary levels if the SOE is to be able to continue to operate at all, and without bleeding the country dry.

Long before its financial woes I took the decision to stop supporting SAA because of its attitude towards its customers and absolutely shocking service, both on the ground and in the air. It has not stopped me and my clients travelling across Africa and beyond and I continue to support its competitors simply because they are better carriers with more positive, less entitled attitudes. A fish rots from the head, and in SAA's case this has proven to be true with a succession of truly incompetent political appointees with no right to be in the airline game put in charge of what has become this country's biggest white elephant. I am proudly South African, but I do not consider it my responsibility to support SAA. I consider it government's responsibility to ensure that its national carrier be profitable, properly run and competitive. It has consistently failed in this endeavour. If SAA had focussed on the things that are important for a carrier of its stature (competitive pricing, customer service, timekeeping, efficiency, safety, marketing, brand building) instead of forming shady cabals with certain other "independent" carriers (we all know who they are) hogging slots, carrying out dirty tricks campaigns to drive competition into the ground and behaving as if it has some divine right to dominate Africa's skies, perhaps we, the South African travel industry, would see things differently. The ONLY way to save the SAA marque is to privatise it, instead Gordhan is planning to borrow more money to restructure a bloated, rotting carcass. It's dead already, Pravin. Just bury it.