Iberia to end Dubrovnik winter flights

GLOBAL AVIATION NEWS

SAA sold

South Africa agreed to sell a majority stake in the country’s grounded national carrier to a local jet-leasing company and private-equity firm, ridding the government of an entity that has long been a drain on state finances. A consortium comprised of Johannesburg-based Global Airways, which owns recently launched domestic airline Lift, and private-equity firm Harith General Partners will take a 51% shareholding in South African Airways (SAA), Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said. The government will retain a minority stake. The grouping named Takatso will invest as much as 3.5 billion rand ($258 million) over the next three years, Lift co-founder, Gidon Novick, and Harith Chief Executive Officer, Tshepo Mahloele, said in an interview. “Government will have no further financial obligations to the company, outside of the existing liabilities that they will settle”, Novick said. He added, “Route networks we are still working on, and it will be a phased roll-out based on demand re-emerging post Covid”. The sale of SAA comes about six weeks after the airline emerged from lengthy bankruptcy proceedings, having reduced its workforce by almost 80% and cut liabilities to about 2.6 billion rand. The next challenge is to resume international flights, though South Africa remains cut off from much of the world due to pandemic travel restrictions. A longer-term goal is to list the carrier on a stock exchange, Gordhan said. In the meantime, the government will retain special voting rights to ensure the airline remains in the country, among other national priorities. The deal represents a triumph of sorts for Gordhan, who has argued for the revival of SAA with the help of private investors while others were calling for it to be liquidated. While SAA is now “solvent and liquid,” business-rescue practitioners said when handing over the aircraft, subsidiaries including low cost arm Mango and maintenance firm SAA Technical remain under financial strain and are in the process of being recapitalized. The Department of Public Enterprises and the new consortium will together assess the future of the divisions as part of the due diliegence process, Gordhan said.
Source: Bloomberg

Iberia to end Dubrovnik winter flights

NEWS FLASH

Spain’s national carrier, Iberia, will discontinue its winter operations between Madrid and Dubrovnik, downgrading the route to seasonal summer flights. The airline commenced two weekly winter services between the two cities last year, during the 2018/19 winter season. On the other hand, Iberia will boost its winter operations to Zagreb by adding an additional weekly flight for a total of three. The new service will run on Sundays. This summer, the Spanish flag carrier has significantly increased its operations to Croatia, with the airline boosting capacity by 44.6% compared to 2018, offering up to 204.586 seats between the two countries. "Most of our passengers to and from Croatia fly point to point, but we also have connecting traffic. Among the cities that feed more passengers to our flights from/to Dubrovnik, Split and Zagreb last year were New York, Lisbon, Bilbao, Porto, Chicago, Boston and Miami", the airline told EX-YU Aviation News earlier this year. Next month, Iberia will launch its fourth destination in Croatia, to Zadar, which will run twice per week until August 31.

Comments

Anonymous13:53
Such a shame for DBV but fantastic news for ZAG which won't get much love in W20.
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Anonymous15:50
One weekly flight.
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Zvone17:48
Really bad news for DBV, also don't understand why they couldn't make it work. Their Barcelona - Dubrovnik flights are doing extremly well
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