I was recently invited to Victoria Falls to see the work of a tenacious black female entrepreneur who has opened a five-star boutique hotel in the prime resort town. They desperately need tourists back marvelling at those majestic falls on the mighty Zambezi.
For its flaws, the Zimbabwean government is doing right by the small town. It kick-started that country’s vaccination programme there and now all its 50,000 inhabitants have been vaccinated, making Victoria Falls the first town in the world to achieve herd immunity. They are using the Chinese Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, and have so far inoculated close to 500,000 people across the country. That’s fewer than 5% of the population. Locals get the vaccine free, but the government has opened it up to foreigners who are willing to pay $70 (about R980) a jab. I was tempted. Dr Zweli Mkhize, please get your act together.
When the invitation landed on my desk, there were two issues I had to get around: how to get to Vic Falls from Johannesburg and the requirements for leaving your country during a pandemic. Zim requires a PCR Covid-19 test conducted 48 hours before entry. That was easy to arrange. With that out of the way, the next question was how to get myself there given the sorry state of our local aviation industry. Not to fret, my hosts had it covered. Regional no-frills carrier Fastjet operates a service between Johannesburg/Cape Town and Victoria Falls (Joburg route to be upgraded to a daily service from May 30). It also has daily flights between Johannesburg and Harare. The carrier uses 50-seater Embraer 145 jets that are renowned in the industry for fuel efficiency. It gets you where you want to go on time, and that’s all an airline has to get right.
Just as in life, business does not allow for a vacuum. On my first visit to Victoria Falls in 2012, I remember flying SAA, which operated regular flights to Victoria Falls and the adjacent town of Livingstone, on the Zambian side of the falls. SAA is dead now and others occupy its berths at airports. Fastjet ramped up flights between Zimbabwe and SA at around the time we were only starting to learn of the devastation of SAA under the chief architects of state capture. After being interrupted by Covid-19, Fastjet has been quick off the mark, ramping up its service between this country and Zimbabwe, especially to Victoria Falls, in anticipation of the expected tourist rush. It is helping itself to large servings of what should be SAA’s lunch.
I understand SAA has since exited business rescue and is hoping to resume flights in July. That’s wishful thinking.
I understand SAA has since exited business rescue and is hoping to resume flights in July. That’s wishful thinking. For starters, the airline is locked in a battle with the pilots’ association over monies owed to pilots. That is headed to the labour court and could drag on for months. Even if it settles with the pilots and resumes flights in July, where will it fly to? Other airlines have moved into the space. FlySafair enjoyed a long monopoly on major domestic routes in the absence of SAA and while Comair was also undergoing a business rescue process. The latter is back in the air and adds new routes on an almost daily basis. New kid on the block Lift has found itself a nice spot on the profitable the Cape Town-Johannesburg route. SAA’s sister airline, Mango, is back in the air serving the domestic market after a feud with Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) about non-payment of fees. Given domestic travel is still subdued due to lockdown, which viable domestic routes will be left for SAA when it does resume flights?
The national carrier is also eyeing a resumption of regional flights, but more capable and reliable competitors have entrenched themselves in the region and on the continent. Ethiopian Airways literally owns this market. International flights will be limited until global lockdowns have eased and universal vaccination is achieved.
SAA has not only lost market share, it has lost credibility. It will take a lot for travellers to trust it again. The department of public enterprises says it’s in the final stages of talks with an unnamed strategic equity partner that is interested in acquiring a stake. I know the Ethiopians were interested when Vuyani Jarana was running SAA, but they lost interest when previous boards played politics instead of seeing a golden opportunity to rescue an ailing airline.
Hopefully, this strategic equity partner has deep pockets, expertise and enough patience to resuscitate a once-proud carrier that was a victim of greed, plunder and political chicanery. Government has hopefully learnt its lesson. Should the deal succeed, the state must take a minority stake, keep greedy rent-seekers far away from the board and operations, and let professionals get on with the job.
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