SA EXPRESS CEO and airline veteran Siza Mzimela was yesterday named the new CEO of South African Airways (SAA), filling a seat vacant since Khaya Ngqula left in March.

 

 

Mzimela provides the perfect blend of skills required for the top job, and is well regarded in government circles.

 

 

She proved herself as a competent airline manager at SA Express and SAA, and has been highly praised in the industry.

 

 

Mzimela will need all her skills to keep the national carrier profitable and build on the recent restructure.

 

 

While SAA reported a profit of R398m in the year to March last year — reversing the R1,09bn loss a year earlier — and said it no longer needed state support, Mzimela faces several obstacles to sustaining profit.

 

 

Chief among the challenges are a sharp contraction in passenger numbers and negative perceptions in the marketplace.

 

 

SAA board chairwoman Cheryl Carolus, in announcing Mzimela’s appointment yesterday, said corporate governance would be one of the areas of focus for the new CEO. Carolus said the findings of the KPMG forensic audit on alleged mismanagement under the leadership of Ngqula would be made public next month.

 

 

The board and CEO would take steps to remedy shortcomings found in the audit.

 

 

“It’s not so much about an individual, but rather about the corporate landscape at SAA,” Carolus said.

 

 

She said some of the problems dated back decades, and there was a need for modernisation.

 

 

Commenting on the possibility of merging SAA and SA Express, Carolus said that there had been discussion about ownership.

 

 

Both are wholly owned by the government, but have separate boards and management.

 

 

“The focus on the government is to create affordable airlift, and they are discussing how best this can be achieved. No decisions have been made,” she said.

 

 

Carolus said last year that she wanted a “strong leader and not a technocrat”, someone who could make SAA’s quest to expand further into the rest of Africa “a reality”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mzimela was one of five candidates short-listed for the position, and Carolus said it was testimony to managerial talent in SA that only one was from abroad.

 

 

Carolus said that the new CEO was taking over a “ship that had already begun to turn around”, and the biggest challenges now lay behind it.

 

 

Acting CEO Chris Smyth will remain in the senior management of SAA, and Carolus was fulsome in her praise of his tenure.

 

 

Mzimela would start at SAA next week, and would dedicate one day a week to SAA and four days to SA Express in her first month to ensure a smooth transition of control.

 

 

From April 1, Mzimela would spend four days at SAA and one at SA Express before taking full control of SAA from May.

 

 

Mzimela has filled various roles at SAA, including that of executive vice- president of global passenger services and later as head of Voyager and global sales.

 

 

She left SAA in 2003 to take up her current post at SA Express, and has transformed the debt-laden airline into a consistent profit generator.

 

 

Most recently, Mzimela was instrumental in implementing SA Express’s growth into Africa, and earlier this month launched Congo Express, a partnership between SA Express and Congolese firm BizAfrika Congo.

 

 

A further endorsement of her ability as an airline manager is her inclusion in an international publication, The 100 Greatest Women in Aviation.

By Source: Business Day

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