SAA Says Mango Cannot Succeed Until Equity Partner in Place

South African Airways (SAA) says there are no “reasonable prospects” of Mango Airlines succeeding if it takes to the skies again this December.

Mango, which is a subsidiary of SAA and is government-owned, is currently undergoing business rescue after it was grounded in July following years of financial instability.

“[T]here are no reasonable prospects of Mango succeeding should it be operationalised prior to obtaining an investor or equity partner. SAA’s position is that this process should be finalised as soon as possible. [O]perations should only resume thereafter thus mitigating the risk of Mango not being able to financially sustain itself going forward,” SAA said in a statement on Monday.

SAA, which itself only recently took to the skies again after a period in business rescue, added that operationalising Mango Airlines in December is not the correct step to take.

“SAA does not believe the current plan presented by the [Business Rescue Practitioners] that Mango resume operations in December is feasible and asked…for the current plan to be reviewed and for an amended version to be presented.

“[T]he current aviation environment the world over is highly volatile and there are variables which cannot be predicted with any level of certainty, chief among them are probable new waves of COVID 19,” the airline said.

Following reports that SAA’s board is at odds with Mango’s business rescue practitioners, SAA emphasised that it is working with Mango’s business rescue practitioners and is looking forward to the finalisation of Mango’s operationalisation plan. – SAnews.gov.za