South African Airways embarks on turnaround strategies •Visits Nigeria to parley trade partners

The South African government has begun steps to reposition its ailing national carrier, South African Airways (SAA) towards profitability once again with the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Leading this mandate is the newly-appointed CEO, Mr. Vuyani Jarana, who was in Nigeria last week to meet with the trade partners of the airline in the country on how to carry them along as the management team embarks on the strategies to adopt for the revival of the airline.

This is just as the airline which will soon mark its 20 years of flight operations between Nigeria and South Africa has described the Nigerian route as very important to its market.

“It (Nigeria) gives us good load factor and has a proper mix of customers in Business and Economy class. It is one of the profitable routes we have in SAA; that is why we want to continue to support growth and improve on the customer experience. I can say we do have a lot of leadership in that market”.

Speaking with some aviation journalists in Lagos, Javana, who said his visit to Nigeria was the first since he became the CEO of the airline, identified some strategies his management would apply to making the airline profitable again.

On the mandate given to him to turn around the airline, Javana, declared that one of the ways to make the airline regain its lost glory is by focusing  on customers’ experience to ensure they are well taken care of  while on board.

“One of the things we are looking at is on-board experience and to ensure that it is better than what we have today so that South African Airways customers are well looked after because they are important to us. Obviously, we all know that SAA has gone through difficult time what we want to be looking at and what is priority is network of the route and areas where we can stop the bleeding in terms of financial aspect. We are trying to look at the balancing operating along the low cost carriers because we own the mandate and balancing the market.”

Identifying other areas he described as critical to the revamping of the airline to include putting the right aircraft on the right route, market balancing and having the right traffic profile, the CEO stated: “ It was important to meet our trade partners and Nigeria-South African chamber of Commerce, the Consular General on challenges of promoting travels and how we can address that collectively and to look at all the obstacles. That was the meeting we had yesterday.

“Nigeria is a very successful route and very attractive for SAA brand and we are introducing new aircraft into the route. One of the things we are looking at is on-board experience and to ensure that it is better than what we have today so that our customers are well looked after because they are important to us. Obviously, we all know that SAA has gone through difficult times that we want to be looking at, and what is priority is network of the route and areas where we can stop the bleeding in terms of financial aspect”.