The South African Airways (SAA) Board has welcomed the appointment of Professor John Lamola as its Group Chief Govt Officer. The Board is assured that Lamola’s appointment marks a turning level for SAA’s long-term monetary well being, who has the ability, monitor document, management expertise, perception, and imaginative and prescient to information the nationwide service in its continued progress, guaranteeing that SAA stays a viable regional, continental, and international aviation operator.
Lamola has been on the helm at SAA as interim CEO since Might 2022. He’s deeply conversant with the airline’s previous and has been intimately concerned in planning its future. His confirmed management will guarantee stability and continuity in SAA’s governance and operations.
SAA Board Interim Chairperson, Mr Derek Hanekom says: “The SAA Board is delighted to have the ability to appoint a strong and devoted chief effectively versed in SAA’s fortunes and wanting to proceed overseeing its take-off into higher skies. We want Professor Lamola and SAA secure flight into an excellent brighter future.”
In his place as interim CEO, Professor Lamola ensured SAA’s return to profit-making standing. Within the 2022/23 monetary yr, SAA reported a web revenue of R252-million, marking its first worthwhile yr since 2012. Income in the identical yr was R5.7-billion, up from R2-billion within the earlier monetary yr (2021/22).
The airline has steadily added nationwide, continental, and international routes, flying to 16 locations by January 2025, in distinction with six locations in 2021. It has expanded its fleet from six plane to twenty in the identical interval, together with the addition of two Airbus A330s. Since 2021, SAA has elevated its workforce from 800 to roughly 2 000 (November 2024), together with 140 pilots, at group degree.
The airline’s monetary self-discipline and well being proceed to enhance, and Professor Lamola’s appointment confirms the Board’s confidence in his management and aligns with the federal government’s imaginative and prescient for a commercially viable and globally aggressive SAA.
“Professor Lamola can now proceed rising SAA with confidence, realizing that he has the complete help of the SAA Board and its shareholders,” Hanekom says. “We congratulate him on his appointment and need him effectively in his management of SAA.”
In accordance with a examine SAA commissioned from Oxford Economics Africa, a London-headquartered consulting chief in international financial forecasting and econometric evaluation, SAA’s gross worth add (GVA) to South Africa’s GDP within the 2023/24 monetary yr is R9.1-billion. Oxford Economics Africa initiatives that the airline’s GVA to South Africa’s GDP will rise to R32.6-billion by 2029/30.
The identical report estimates that SAA is a robust job creator for the South African economic system. It initiatives that SAA’s affect on the economic system, by means of, for instance, bringing vacationers to South Africa and facilitating worldwide commerce with the nation, will take off, sparking the creation of direct and oblique jobs, from 25 200 jobs in 2023/24 to 86 700 by 2029/30.
SAA actions are anticipated to generate authorities income of R1.1-billion (precise) in 2023/24, rising to R4.4-billion (projected) by 2029/30. Professor Lamola has strong expertise within the aviation trade, having constructed and managed a proprietary non-public fairness funding portfolio that included holdings in aviation and web applied sciences. He was CEO at Denel Aviation between 1996 and 2001 and served on the Board of the Airports Firm South Africa between 2012 and 2017.
Professor Lamola obtained his PhD in philosophy and spiritual research from Edinburgh College in Scotland and a Grasp of Enterprise Administration diploma from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical College in Florida in america.
