SA Express has, for the fourth time, narrowly escaped final liquidation as the court postponed the matter to a new hearing on April 29 to buy the airline more time.
SAX was placed under provisional liquidation in April 20, 2020, after its business rescue process failed.
During the course of the last year a number of expressions of interest were received from parties interested in purchasing the airline. The bid was won in September by Fly SAX, founded by a group of SAX employees. According to media reports at the time, Fly SAX offered a purchase price of R50m for the company in the form of a bank guarantee, and proposed to raise a further R250m in equity through a crowd-funding platform facilitated by Uprise Africa.
Thabsile Sikakane, a director of Fly SAX, told News24 that it had managed to obtain provision of the financial guarantees by an anchor investor to get SAX out of provisional liquidation.
“The next step will be to sign a share sale agreement with the DPE with approval from its creditors, and to seek approvals form the Air Service Licensing Council authorities, which is expected to happen in the next few months,” she added.
NUMSA and SACCA have said they support the postponement decision, saying that the outcome of a liquidation would have disastrous consequences for SAX workers and their families. They reiterated their belief that SAX was a viable business that played a meaningful role in the aviation sector and that it could still be saved.
The labour unions added that they were mindful that on February 6 the airline would have been in business rescue for a year.
“From the time this happened, workers have not received a salary, and they have been in limbo since that day. Even if they quit and take voluntary severance packages, there is no certainty on when, or even if, they will receive this money. Last year the DPE promised that it would source funding for VSPs for employees at SAX, just as it did for SAA, but the shareholder has failed to live up to this promise as well. No pension fund, nor medical aid contributions have been made in the last 10 months, which means they have had to fend for themselves through this pandemic,” said the unions.
However, Fly SAX does not intend to re-employ all of SAX’s workers and told News24 that this entity would call employees in on a contract basis to assist in terms of planning for the new airline.
“It is unfortunate that we cannot commit to employment for everyone but we will prioritise SAX employees. We need to take note that the anchor investor will also be bringing in its management in key positions. We are going to be very conservative and minimise our risk of unnecessary expenditures,” explained Thabsile to News 24.
