A Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet airliner of SA Express
Photo by: SA Express
South African State-owned regional airline SA Express on Wednesday charged State-owned national flag carrier South African Airways (SAA) with unlawfully retaining monies that belong to the regional operator. “Now that SAA has received funds, the regional airline trusts that finally paying these revenues will be prioritised,” it asserted in its press release.
SA Express affirmed that the revenues belonged to it because SAA had acted only as an agent of the regional carrier. SAA is currently in business rescue.
The executive management and board of SA Express had, for the past two months, been working with SAA’s business rescue practitioner to settle the issue. The SA Express board had also resolved to approach their shareholder – that is, government (also SAA’s shareholder) about the matter, which the regional airline described as “pressing”.
SA Express affirmed that legal opinion supported its position that the terms of the commercial agreement between it and SAA were 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 revenue collected.”
SA Express has been through its own tough times, in the recent past, it recalled. “[T]he 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.”