Johannesburg - Plagued by debt and years of mismanagement, state-owned South African Airways has been placed into business rescue - South Africa's bankruptcy protection process - in a last-ditch attempt to save the national carrier.
A team of turnaround specialists appointed to try and pull the state-run carrier back from the brink of collapse said on Friday that there was a reasonable chance that South African Airways can be saved. South Africa's business rescue process, which aims to shield a business from the demands of its creditors while an independent advisor attempts turn it around, borrows from U.S., British, Canadian and Australian law.
But business rescue is uniquely South African in terms of its time tables, ranking of preference among stakeholders and the involvement of labour.