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Speaker 1: Well, let's focus on this SAA news. Professor John Lomulo,

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Speaker 1: who first joined the organization in July twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 1: became a group Chief executive Officer in May twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: so just under four years of service in that frontline

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Speaker 1: role he has resigned. So let's review what he managed

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Speaker 1: to get done in those four years and get a

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Speaker 1: sense of where SAA is at the end of the

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Speaker 1: Professor John Lamula tenure, Doctor Guy Leach Aviation and list

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Speaker 1: once again, as always, thanks so much for giving us

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Speaker 1: your time. If you were to assess John Lamulla's contribution

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Speaker 1: to SAA, what would you focus on? Good afternoon, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Hi John, and nice to be with you, as always. Well,

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Speaker 2: it's a real lost I think it's a real pity

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Speaker 2: that Perflomola's tenure has come to an end. I think

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Speaker 2: that he now has the record as the longest serving

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Speaker 2: CEO and certainly the past fifteen years since twenty ten.

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Speaker 2: So well done to him, and that for good because

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Speaker 2: it really is a poison chalicer, as I once called it,

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Speaker 2: a hospital pass. I think the history will go down

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Speaker 2: are saying he's done a reasonably good job given really

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Speaker 2: tough circumstances and that he had to rebuild the airline

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Speaker 2: that had both been enormously discredited, was resented by the

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Speaker 2: so African tax player that it was supposed to fund,

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Speaker 2: and was enormously short of capital. So his rebuild was

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Speaker 2: very measured. It's taken a long time just to start

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Speaker 2: rebuilding most of the domestic and regional routes, and he's

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Speaker 2: rarely struggled on the long haul routes. All he's managed

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Speaker 2: to open was Perth and sar Paalo. So no return

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Speaker 2: to flying to Europe, no return to fly into England,

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Speaker 2: and no return to flying to the USA. And that's

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Speaker 2: largely because they just couldn't afford to acquire new and

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Speaker 2: competitive aircraft.

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Speaker 1: So in terms of legs, see one looks obviously at

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Speaker 1: work done, but you also look at the state of

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Speaker 1: an organization that you leave behind. Are they with you

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Speaker 1: in the things you try to do? Or does a

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Speaker 1: new CEO come in and want to reinvent things, remake things,

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Speaker 1: maybe bring in their own team. What's your sense of

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Speaker 1: how that might play out at SAA Because I would

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Speaker 1: have thought stability is.

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Speaker 2: Crucial, absolutely, I think stability is absolutely vital. But so

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Speaker 2: it is in a sensory building for the future, and

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Speaker 2: I think the problem that the airline faces right now

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Speaker 2: is that they rebuilt for more future than actually happened.

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Speaker 2: Though the airline is quite thankly overstaffed, the expenses are

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Speaker 2: way too heavy. In fact, they exceeded revenue by three

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Speaker 2: hundred million round in twenty twenty five, So there's a

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Speaker 2: lot going on, and I think it's going to get

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Speaker 2: a lot worse because we've seen obviously the fallout from

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Speaker 2: the Iranian conflictive ocean can call it that, with massive

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Speaker 2: oil supplies price spike, but possible shortages of jet fuel.

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Speaker 2: And at the same time we've got this ongoing background

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Speaker 2: issue of supply chain constraints in the aviation industry. You

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Speaker 2: can't get in the aircraft for the next six or

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Speaker 2: seven years, and spare parts are enormously difficult to come

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Speaker 2: by as well. So it's a really difficult time to

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Speaker 2: run an airline and it will be very difficult for

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Speaker 2: any incoming CEO, either acting or permanent, to be able

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Speaker 2: to turn the ship around.

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Speaker 1: In terms of the state of SAA, you spoke about

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Speaker 1: some disappointments in regard to getting back into the long

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Speaker 1: hallmarket Europe not achieved and other potentially lucrative routes not secured.

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Speaker 1: But overall, is a better run and if so by

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Speaker 1: what margin?

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Speaker 2: Good question? So here's how I divide it up. In

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Speaker 2: the bad old days after Coleman Andrews, for about ten

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Speaker 2: years it ended about a million, sorry a billion round

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Speaker 2: a year loss, and that was probably sustainable given the

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Speaker 2: development mandate that it carried and so on. But then,

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Speaker 2: of course we had the period of Dudumanni what other

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Speaker 2: are called the nine Wasted years, and losses shot up

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Speaker 2: to about five or six billion around a year, and

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Speaker 2: that was clearly unsustainable. So we all hoped that the

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Speaker 2: airline would operate, if not profitably, at least at break even,

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Speaker 2: and unfortunately that is shown to be not the case.

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Speaker 2: In twenty four financial year, what was claimed to be

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Speaker 2: a profit was suddenly turned into a loss, and a

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Speaker 2: significant loss of that about four hundred and fifty million

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Speaker 2: round by the Order to General forcing them to restate.

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Speaker 2: The twenty twenty five annual report was really just an

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Speaker 2: extraordinary document. I couldn't make head or tail of it

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Speaker 2: because it seemed to quite three or four different so

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Speaker 2: called profit number. But when I scratched beneath the surface,

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Speaker 2: it was suggesting a real loss, if not a loss

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Speaker 2: of up to a billion rant and even the possibility

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Speaker 2: of a recapitalization from me or rather a bailout from

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Speaker 2: the States and the sale of the billion randsworth a share.

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Speaker 2: So there were a whole host of questions which were

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Speaker 2: not properly answered in that annual report. I suspect that

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Speaker 2: this has increased the pressure on Minister Creasy and obviously

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Speaker 2: on Professor Lamola. And we've seen at the same time

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Speaker 2: other fought out. The CFO missus Lusi Orziki took retirement

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Speaker 2: two weeks ago, and we've seen three of the non

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Speaker 2: executive directors design as well. This is a sure sign

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Speaker 2: of an organization that is under enormous pressure and I

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Speaker 2: really struggled to fulfill its mandate.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much, doctor Guy Leach. Aviation and let's

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Speaker 1: again inviting you if you have been flying with SAA

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Speaker 1: or if you work there, you may want to give

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Speaker 1: us your kind of in flight on how things are

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Speaker 1: going there. Nineteen minutes past five