South Africa’s troubled national carrier South African Airways has flown into more turbulence with reports emerging of dwindling passenger numbers on flights, according to a local media outlet.
Last month, a photo apparently showing empty seats on a SAA flight from London went viral sparking debate about the airline’s chances of long-term survival.
The Times Live subsequently reported that passengers said they have noticed that there are some flights that are half-empty as the company grapples with a raft of issues including solvency.
One such passenger named Marius Basson told Times Live that a SAA flight he took last Wednesday to Cape Town from Bloemfontein had less than 20 passengers.
“In the last six months of 2019, I started seeing fewer and fewer passengers on the flights. Even though their service is still very good, their prices are very high. I just hope they will not discontinue this route as they did with other routes,” Basson was quoted as saying.
Basson added that they had to be seated strategically so as to ensure their weight was distributed evenly in the plane.
Another passenger named Nkhumbuleni Mbada said that there were just 60 passengers on a flight to the German city of Munich against an average number of 150 passengers.
A passenger who spoke on condition of anonymity said that her fight to neighboring Botswana was canceled forcing her and others to book hotel rooms and flights on different airlines.
Last week, SAA announced that it will cancel or consolidate where there is low demand as part of cost-cutting measures. Nearly 50 local and international flights this month were canceled as a result.
A leading retailer, Flight Centre, also said that it will no longer sell packages or flight tickets for SAA citing risks currently linked with the airline.
SAA recently received 3.5 billion rand ($244 million) of emergency funding from the government-owned Development Bank of Southern Africa.
SAA has not made a profit since 2011, surviving instead on more than 20 billion rand in bailouts over the last three years. That has put the country’s credit rating and investor confidence under increasing pressure.
