ATTITUDE FOR ALTITUDE: GUY LEITCH
SAA VS CAA VS DPE
The struggle over the remains of SAA has taken an appalling twist. UP TO NOW I HAVE HELD A GRUDGING respect for the CAA’s commitment to uphold standards, whether ICAO SARPs, or its own regulations. I may have often disagreed with the methods and the lack of engagement with its subjects, yet the CAA has by and large maintained its integrity. Now however, the confidence that we can have in the regulator's integrity has been broken.
operating into Brussels with no ground support. This is confirmed by the flight number which was preceded by a 4 which denotes a positioning flight, and not a 6, which is used for freight. We are told the vaccines would fit in a bakkie and could easily be airfreighted – for a 100th of the cost. Emirates airfreighted ten times as many vaccines on a couple of pallets to Ghana in the belly of a scheduled B777. There was even an Ethiopian Airlines freighter operating from Brussels to Johannesburg that could have accommodated the pallet of vaccines. And they could have sent the Presidential Boeing Business jet – or even one of the Falcons.
SAA, with the collusion of the CAA, launched a flight far below safety standards
The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) has, against all standards of sanity, persisted in using SAA for a grotesque flag waving exercise. Beyond a public relations stunt, there can be no justification for pulling an SAA A340600 out of mothballs and spending an estimated R5 million to fetch a pallet of vaccines.
In response to a torrent of criticism, the DPE has claimed that they were also carrying cargo northbound. Yet this is contradicted by the aircraft’s manifest, which shows just eight tons of spares for the plane were carried since they were
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March 2021
Apart from the waste of public resources, and SAA being beyond bankrupt, the government bent basic aviation rules to send an empty A340-600 to Brussels. This despite having not paid the vast majority of the pilots for 10 months and refusing to pay their death cover unless the pilots agree to a settlement agreement.