SAA and other SOEs putting the country on trial – Gidon Novick

Former co-Chief Executive Officer of Comair, Gidon Novick brought the low cost airline business to South Africa. But he grounded himself in 2011, headed Vitality for three years and became an entrepreneur in the tourism sector, that he believes still has immense untapped potential. In an interview with Alec Hogg, he has also weighed in on the debate on whether it makes any sense in holding onto the ailing national airline, South African Airways and whether he would consider stepping in to run SAA. – Linda van Tilburg

Responding to a question whether South African Airways were 'playing unfair" when he was in charge of Comair; Novick said it was always a bit of a mixed bag. Comair would complain in the media bitterly about the unfair subsidies and the fact that they were paying taxes that were effectively subsidising their competitor which was blatantly unfair. But the other side of the coin about which Comair complained less about was the fact that he thought that SAA didn't do a great job in the market. One could compete quite successfully with them by doing the basics right and building a brand and building a customer base. He said for many years Comair was able to compete quite well against SAA.

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