French aircraft manufacturer Airbus has threatened to abandon a sweet deal it struck to bail SAA out of a R5.2-billion obligation, after receiving a bizarre letter from SAA chairwoman Dudu Myeni. She told the company last month that the airline's board had decided to bring a middleman in on the deal.In terms of the Airbus deal, related to the 2009 purchase of aircraft, the airline would have got back its $100-million (R1.3-billion) deposit and been let off any obligation to pay the balance of $400-million - R5.2-billion - while averting another R1-billion-plus impairment.But the letter from Myeni to the French company has now threatened to scupper this deal.An SAA insider with knowledge of the deal said this week that Myeni's request and the response by the French company had taken senior executives by surprise.story_article_left1"The first we heard of it was when Airbus's teams were demanding to know why we sprang this on them after the contract had been signed."They said: 'But what the f***This thing was concluded.' We were shocked because none of this had ever been raised with us," said the insider, who asked to remain anonymous.The Sunday Times understands the Airbus deal - which involved the conversion of some aircraft purchases into leases - had the backing of the board and Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene.Myeni, it seems, did not have the board's backing when she approached Airbus last month, despite telling Airbus she did.She wrote: "On behalf of the board of South African Airways ... I am pleased to inform you that SAA has decided to do this transaction differently, by engaging an African Aircraft Leasing Company to engage directly with you."Airbus CEO Fabrice Brégier responded by saying that SAA could not tell his company who to deal with"Therefore it cannot be entertained at such a late stage as a condition to this transaction, which would severely compromise Airbus's ethics and compliance guidelines."Without immediate closure, Airbus will be forced to take appropriate actions in order to preserve its rights."Multiple sources told the Sunday Times that the SAA board only discussed Myeni's revised offering last Saturday, after, she had written the letter to Airbus.In a memo sent to SAA's board before the meeting, Myeni said there was a South African consortium of private and public institutions that wished to make a proposal.story_article_right2She alluded to a board view that SAA should pursue an approach where the Department of Transport and the Treasury would take over fleet and fuel purchases, respectively.As things stand, everything hinges on whether Airbus will insist on SAA paying up for the aircraft as per the original contract.SAA spokesman Tlali Tlali said the extraordinary measures were taken as the airline believed that three executives working on the deal stood to benefit "materially in their personal capacities, and that the deal would not resolve the airline's solvency position. The board consequently appointed Ernst and Young to conduct the investigation, which has already commenced."He added that it had become worrying that details of the transactions were not shared with the rest of SAA's executives, outside of the three working on the deal."This could have been one of the worst commercial decisions taken by SAA."The Treasury had not responded by the time of publication...