Business
Airline Maps Out Austerity Plan To Remain Afloat
Chief Executive of South African Airways, Vuyani Jarana, said on Monday that the company was mapping out an austerity plan that would lead to job cuts, to save the airline.
Jarana, who faces the daunting task of turning the flag carrier around, said in Johannesburg that layoffs and other cuts were unavoidable to contend with a draining cost-to-income ratio of 108 per cent.
“SAA cannot carry the same workforce, whether it is pilots, cabin crew or administration,” he told Reuters.
“We have to make some tough decisions to save the airline. There cannot be sacred cows when it comes to SAA.”
He declined to put a number to the job losses, but two sources familiar with his plan said the state-owned carrier was likely to cut between 1,000 and 1,500 people via a combination of layoffs and voluntary redundancies, to bring its employee-per-aircraft ratio in line with regional competitors.
The numbers include roughly 300 flight attendants, according to one of the sources. Some of the carrier’s 700 pilots, encouraged to look for jobs elsewhere, have drafted their own severance pay offer to SAA, the second source said.
In a dramatic fall from grace over the past decade, SAA has lost its place as Africa’s biggest airline and a symbol of patriotic pride to become a source of frustration for taxpayers who have forked out more than 30 billion rand ($2.3 billion) since 2012 to keep it in the air.
SAA’s woes are emblematic of the struggles of traditional flag carriers around the world, such as Malaysia Airlines, Air India and Air France-KLM.
These airlines are contending with low-cost rivals and a spike in oil prices, which puts pressure on those with the highest labour and other non-fuel costs.
The problems are also an illustration of the malaise afflicting the airline industry in Africa, whose airlines have the weakest finances and emptiest planes of any region of the world.
Jarana told Reuters he was also setting up other moves to reduce the airline’s 33.5 billion rand operating costs.
According to him, the cut include squeezing suppliers for better deals and cutting back on its number of flights to London from twice to once a day.
The carrier makes its biggest losses on the London route because it faces fierce competitions that expose its
Credit to Nigeria’s private sector rose to N83.26 trillion in June 2026 from N81.04 trillion in May, signifying a positive balance of N2.22 trillion month-on-month.
Year-on-year, the figure represents a nine per cent increase compared with the N76.13 trillion recorded in June 2025. The latest figures come as the CBN continues to balance efforts to control inflation with the need to support economic growth and expand credit to businesses.
The CBN data shows that credit to Nigeria’s private sector increased by approximately 2.74 per cent month-on-month between May and June 2026. Also, the CBN data noted that credit to the government fell slightly to N40.03 trillion from N40.38 trillion. Other assets, net, dropped to N10.76 trillion from N12.63 trillion.
The credit surge signifies sustained growth in lending to businesses and other private-sector borrowers during the month. The rise in private sector credit was recorded alongside an increase in net domestic credit, despite declines in credit to government and other assets.
Further analysis of the report says that compared with June 2025, private sector credit rose by about N7.13 trillion yea-on-year but net domestic credit increased by approximately N1.87 trillion during the month.
The CBN’s relatively tight monetary policy stance notwithstanding, more banks still loaded funds to the private sector within the period. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) held its 306th meeting on July 20 and 21.
The Committee reviewed recent developments in the global and domestic economies, assessed emerging risks to the outlook and considered their implications for monetary policy and retained all rates.
The Committee decided to retain the Monetary Policy Rate at 26.5 per cent; the Standing Facilities Corridor around the MPR at +50/-450 basis points and retain the Cash Reserve Requirement (CRR) for Deposit Money Banks at 45.00 per cent, Merchant Banks at 16.00 per cent, and non-TSA public sector deposits at 75.00 per cent.
The MPC decision means that credit extension in the private sector will likely continue to rise because of rising confidence in the sector and calls by stakeholders for banks to invest in the private scetor instead of government securities.
