South African Airways (SA, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) revealed in a statement on January 30 that it would “cancel and consolidate selected scheduled flights” to lower costs, just two days after confirming that a ZAR3.5 billion rand (USD235 million) government bailout had been secured from the state-owned Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).

A previously pledged ZAR2 billion rescue package from the National Treasury stalled when Finance Minister Tito Mboweni insisted that any loan must avoid increasing the country's budget deficit, Reuters reported. Besides the DBSA payment, SAA has also received bridging loans from commercial creditors.

“Flight demand has been scrutinised to ensure SAA is running efficient flights. To this end, SAA will cancel and consolidate selected scheduled flights where there is low demand based on current forward bookings for the month of February,” the airline said in the statement.

Affected cities out of Johannesburg O.R. Tambo include:

“The conservation of cash through various cost reduction measures is critical to running an efficient airline and to create a platform on which a future for a restructured entity can be built,” it added.

Meanwhile, the size of SAA's fleet appears to be diminishing. AerCap currently leases three aircraft - all A340-600s - to the carrier, but one of these, ZS-SNH (msn 626), was flown to San Bernardino on January 28 via São Paulo Guarulhos for part-out and scrapping, Skyliner Aviation said. The other two aircraft, ZS-SNE (msn 534) and ZS-SNI (msn 630), have not flown since landing at Johannesburg O.R. Tambo on January 15 and January 16, respectively. It is recalled that SAA has already issued a tender for the sale of five of its A340-300s and four owned A340-600s.

In related news, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has authorised two new investigations into SAA and the National Treasury, according to a government gazette issued on January 31. The probes will go back to 2002, when the airline and the Department of Public Enterprises first awarded a contract to Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) to modernise the state-owned carrier's fleet.

Ramaphosa asked the country's Special Investigating Unit to look into alleged corruption related to the procurement or contracting of Airbus aircraft, as well as "serious maladministration" in connection with the airline's travel rebates, and unlawful expenditures of public money or property.