Ample levels of disengagement

I was forwarded this article yesterday which calls Ethiopian Airlines the 'Pride of Africa' vs. SAA, which is referred to as Africa's Shame. I do think SAA could probably do better with management, but I also think that SAA does not have the same opportunities that Ethiopian airlines has. For starters, Ethiopian Airlines is based in a country with among the cheapest labor abundance in the world. Working in Ethiopian airlines, even if in the grand scheme of things isn't a glamour job, is a privilege.

To boot, Ethiopian Airlines, having had to survive in a country where it did not have access to ... well, anything, had to build its own expertise in-house horizontally and vertically over many, many decades. It has its own Flight School, churning out enough Pilots and Flight Attendants to service its needs and other airlines on a regular basis; it has it's own technical school for its mechanics, and last I heard, it also handled its own catering services. Recently it also made a move to fold the terminal management into its list of responsibilities -- as the terminal management process was, quite frankly,  an embarrassment to the airline.

Recently, when I was flying to Botswana, I boarded a SAA plane late, necessitating two guys who were already seated on my row to get up to let me access my window seat. As I was passing by I noticed that the seat separator between them had fallen apart. The plastic cover was detached for its metal base, exposing tangled wires and inner workings that probably were never meant for passenger consumption. I pointed it out to them, in case they hadn't noticed, and as they came back in they started putting things back, as much as one can do of broken seat parts.

Right around then a SAA flight attendant walked past our row, so the guy at the isle pointed to their maintenance project to say, "hey, your seats are falling apart!".

The flight attended responded with a sheepish smile, "My seats? I don't own seats. I don't won a plane!"

Right there, I thought, was why SAA was crumbling. Lack of ownership and basic tenets of service bundled into one is the calamity that we all know as SAA.

Still, SAA remains one of my airlines of choice. Let's hope it holds on long enough for a revival fitting its stature.