At the risk of being proven wrong, I post this for the same money that I paid for it. ( Nothing ! )



Ever wonder why we can't keep our airfares down?




Why is SAA always running at such a huge loss and forever requesting
'bail outs' from the government?

The reason appears to be quite simple - they have too many people
working for them and the business simply cannot afford it!

Many of these SAA employees fall into the 'protected employees'
category, (those that simply have a job and do very little to nothing
to substantiate their worth ), and our Employment Act prevents the SAA
from simply 'getting rid' of surplus or unnecessary staff.

In any business it is vitally important to keep ones staff numbers to
an absolute necessary minimum. This would be in line with the
principle of keeping ones overall overheads to a minimum.

A conducted website search of some random airlines (listed below) in
order to gauge the total number of employees at that airline, measured
against their total number of aircraft in the fleet. Simply divide
the total number of employees by the total number of aircraft in the
fleet which in turn indicated how many employees in the airline are
employed PER AIRCRAFT in the fleet.

It must be noted that the research was not conducted in depth and some
of the numbers below reflect from 2010 - 2012.

Interestingly enough, when attempting to download SAA's 2010 Annual
Report, when clicking on it, nothing happens!

Have a look at the 'shock and horror' below:

1) QANTAS (Australian) 32 500 employees with a total of 252
aircraft = 129 employees per aircraft


2) American Airlines 87 897 employees with a total of
618 aircraft = 142 employees per aircraft


3) Delta Airlines 106 216 employees with a
total of 722 aircraft = 147 employees per aircraft


4) British Airways 36 832 employees with a total
of 238 aircraft = 154 employees per aircraft


5) United Airlines 115 149 employees with a
total of 710 aircraft = 162 employees per aircraft


6) South African Airways 55 500 employees with a total of 58
aircraft = 957employees per aircraft

Numbers above are subject to change depending on latest figures.