SAA fails to pay regional airline SA Express

29 January 2020

Over the last two months SA Express has been battling to retrieve monies owed by SAA. The national carrier failed to pay revenues owed to SA Express as a consequence of SAA’s Business Rescue status. Now that SAA has received funds, the regional airline trusts that finally paying these revenues will be prioritised.

The said revenues are entitled to SA Express as SAA purely acts as an Agent for SA Express. The SA Express Board and Executive Management have been working with the SAA Business Rescue Practitioner (BRP) to resolve this matter over the last two months with no imminent way forward. The Board also took a resolution to engage with the Shareholder to resolve this pressing matter.

According to SA Express, and in line with the Legal Opinion received, the terms of its Commercial Agreement with SAA are clear. The revenue uplifted by SAA is property belonging to SA Express and does not form part of property belonging to SAA. As of 7 December 2019, SAA has been in unlawful possession of the collected revenue and has no right to retain the revenue collected.

Although the airline has been through many challenges, including a brief halt in operations in early 2018 as well as making efforts to recover after the detrimental aftereffects of corruption, SA Express hopes to close this matter and move forward to focus on strengthening and growing its business.

Issued by Mpho Majatladi, Divisional Manager: Marketing,Brand& Product, SA Express, 29 January 2020