Hillary Joffe writing in Business Day yesterday on Comair's huge increase in reported profit:
"For Comair, then, the crucial ingredient to maintain its (slim) profit margin is to take out costs equivalent to the CPI inflation rate 'every single year', says Venter (the CEO). So, that is what Comair does. It has the same headcount of 1,950 people it had in 2001 and flies the same number of aircraft.
"SAA employs about 12,000 staff but has little more than double the number of aircraft that Comair has, and on average, SAA pays 50% more than anyone else in the SA industry, in the case of pilots sometimes double or triple that. Even so, Venter reports Comair doesn’t lose people to SAA, despite the lure of money."
The same applies at other SOEs -- Transnet, Eskom, CEF, Denel.