South African Airways is operating independently without depending on government guarantees, according to the country’s transport minister.
Barbara Creecy referred to the airline’s situation during her 2025-26 budget speech on 2 July.
She says the airline – which turned in a profit for the 2022-23 fiscal year, its first for a decade – has concluded three out of four outstanding audits.
Creecy adds that that the carrier is “operating independently and no longer reliant on government guarantees”.
“SAA is self-funding its operations and fleet growth, while remaining open to a strategic equity partner as part of its long-term restructuring,” she says.
Creecy claims the carrier is “well-positioned to drive economic value” through expanded international services, benefiting from “unencumbered assets and renewed profitability”.
It is pursuing a “bold” route-development strategy to strengthen its presence, while undertaking a “measured” fleet expansion.
Creecy also referred to the crisis with which the South African air transport industry was faced earlier this year, owing to poor maintenance of navigation and surveillance systems.
She says “progress is being made” with urgent modernisation of equipment and procurement processes are underway to “stabilise and upgrade” the air traffic management system, and recruit new personnel.
“Safety findings from various audits by [air navigation provider] ATNS and the civil aviation regulator are being closed out,” Creecy adds.
Although the threat of flight-procedure suspension at hubs including Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban was averted in April, she says “more work still remains to be done” to ensure availability.
“There are still too many instances, more than we are comfortable with, of operations that are dependent on alternative means of compliance or exemptions,” she adds.
“Clearly this requires a degree of business unusual and, to this end, ATNS is putting in place a project office to drive the elimination of the backlog that has formed over the past few years.”
