SAA's financial statements have not been audited since 2018. Auditing of the 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 financial statements was underway and will be concluded by end of June, said Lamola.
In tandem, SAA has concluded the audit of the 2023 financial statements, which will be considered by the SAA board for presentation to the external auditors, he said. On the operational level, the company is emerging with a smaller SAA – it used to have about 60 aircrafts, and it is now flying about seven aircrafts, which has created a challenge in terms of the scale of its operating model.
As part of the broader strategic challenges, the market of SAA has been eroded and captured by its competitors. But in the past financial year it has been able to move from eight destinations to 12, launching new routes and, with the support of the public enterprises and finance ministries, they were able to use three additional aircrafts, which has enabled the “massive” turnaround in its financial performance in the past financial year.