Ethiopian Chief Executive Officer Tewolde GebreMariam said talks have taken place in the past but were put on hold. As well as Ethiopian, there has been engagement between the government and Gulf giant Emirates about its codeshare agreement with SAA. It was forced to ground all commercial passenger flights in March when South Africa closed its borders to contain the pandemic. SAA’s need for 10 billion rand includes 2.8 billion rand to get planes flying again and 2.2 billion rand for voluntary severance packages to cut the workforce to 1,000 employees from about 4,800. About 3 billion rand is needed for ticket refunds and 1.7 billion rand for plane-leasing companies.

Source: Ethiopian News September 03, 2020 12:22 UTC