Three stories about airlines should give pause for thought about South African Airways (SAA). The first is about Air India, a perpetually loss-making state-owned airline, which India's government is now trying to sell in its entirety. The airline is burdened by huge debt and has consumed billions of dollars in bailouts. India's Modi government tried, unsuccessfully, to flog a controlling stake in Air India but now seeks to sell 100% - as long as the buyer takes on $3.2bn (R47.4bn) of debt and is Indian-owned. Predictably, there aren't many takers .
The second story is about Davos, sort of. Many South African and other participants in last week's World Economic Forum flew into Zurich on Swiss International Airlines. But many will have known they were really flying Lufthansa - which bought what was then Swissair in 2008 after the Swiss national carrier went bankrupt and its third attempt at restructuring failed.
The ANC stance on SAA
typifies SA’s often ossified
policy thinking
Privately owned Lufthansa also bought Belgian national carrier Sabena out of bankruptcy in 2001 - it now trades as low-cost carrier Brussels Airlines. Vienna-based Austrian Airlines is another subsidiary that was previously loss-making but has been turned to account.
Lufthansa announced the other day that it will be hiring about 4,500 new staff in 2020 as it expands the main airline but also its Swiss, Austrian and Belgian hubs and brands.
In a world of cross-holdings, strategic partnerships and joint ventures between global airlines, the flag on the tail may be just branding. But it demonstrates that you can have a national carrier that brings trade and tourism and connectivity to your country and flies the flag -and you don't have to own or even operate it.
The third story is about Cape Town. Over the past four years, the city has added 17 new international routes to its airline networks, doubling the number of seats and adding an estimated R6bn to the city's tourism revenue. Each new route is estimated to create 3,000 new tourism jobs.
Among the new airlines flying into Cape Town are Cathay Pacific, Austrian Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways and the US's United Airlines.
It's all the work of Cape Town Air Access, a joint venture between city and provincial governments, tourist authorities and the Airports Company of SA which was set up to pitch the city's business case to international airlines after SAA cancelled international routes to Cape Town in 2012, and Virgin Atlantic stopped flying there in 2015. A similar initiative in Durban has attracted three new international routes.
This is a story about boosting tourism and trade without even the need for a national carrier - Cape Town now depends on SAA for just 10% of its international tourists.
When the ANC insisted recently that SAA remain a national airline, and the Development Bank of SA agreed to advance R3.5bn of funding, it raised disturbing questions about why a political party is meddling in a business rescue and why a development finance institution was raided to provide cash for a failed airline. But perhaps most disturbing was that this typified SA's often ossified policy thinking.
Politicians and policymakers look constantly backwards and try to cling to what was, instead of looking forward to new models and approaches that might ultimately do a better job of achieving growth and jobs.
When it comes to SAA, though, they may find they have no choice. Airlines, like banks, depend on confidence. SAA was forced into business rescue when it lost public confidence and ticket sales dried up. The difficult process since then can only have damaged confidence, sales and cash flow further.
Yet like the owners of Air India, the ANC and the government seem still to harbour old delusions about SAA. If they can't or won't contemplate new models, they might find there's nothing left to rescue.
• Joffe is contributing editor.
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