Ethiopian Airlines eyes SAA

The Ethiopian Airlines Group last week said it would consider buying a stake in SAA – should South Africa decide to sell equity in the struggling state carrier. Business Tech reports that SAA hasn’t made a profit since 2011 and last week delayed the release of annual earnings due to its precarious financial state. While the ruling ANC has frequently said that it would consider selling equity in the airline, there has been no visible strategy for such a plan, said Tewolde Mariam, the CEO of Africa’s biggest and only consistently profitable airline. Tewolde said if South Africa asked Ethiopian to buy a stake, ‘we would consider it’. He added that the airline recently signed a shareholders agreement with the Ghana and ‘hopefully it will be up and running in the next six months’.