For SA Express, the end is near. The airline’s provisional liquidators will now apply for final liquidation, according to a letter to unions seen and reported on by Fin24.
Multiple attempts to sell the airline have failed thus far since it entered business rescue in April 2020. Bidding was reopened in March, but to no avail.
In 2021, the Fly SAX group, made up of former employees, offered R5m for the intangible assets of SAX, which essentially comprised the licences and related routes. SAX’s liabilities amounted to over R900m. The bid was spurred on by a crowdfunding effort. At the time, Fly SAX spokesperson Thabsile Sikakane told Travel News that there was “definitely hope for SAX to be resuscitated”.
The Air Services Licensing Council cancelled all SAX’s licences and the route rights, which were at the time allocated to the defunct airline, with immediate effect on July 13. The Licensing Council (under the auspices of the Dept of Transport) had already come under fire for the fact that it was dormant for a whole year and was only reconstituted in March this year. It received harsh criticism for failing to reallocate route rights that were held by defunct airlines, to functioning airlines that wanted them.
The Dynamic People's Union of South Africa (Dypusa) told Fin24 it was disappointed by how government had handled the liquidation of SAX. Trades unions, especially Numsa, were active in trying to stave off a final liquidation, due to the jobs that would be, and eventually were, lost.
"The hopes of reviving the state-owned enterprise are shattered, as well as the hopes of those who used to provide a service to the former regional airline," says General Secretary, Mashudu Raphetha.
Raphetha called on law enforcement authorities to finalise their investigations into what had led to the demise of SAX and to prosecute those who were to blame.
