Economists have warned that the recent transfer of additional funds from Treasury to South African Airways will not sit comfortably with credit ratings agencies. Treasury says the ZAR3b bailout at SAA will prevent the airline from defaulting on its loan to Citibank. However, economists say the transfer will lead to toxic conditions - which may result in another ratings downgrade. Jana van Deventer, head of financial markets at ETM Analytics, says South Africa's Fiscus is already under significant pressure. "That is essentially taxpayers' money that's being used to bailout an entity like SAA. It is a decision which is not budget neutral and...SAA will require more bailouts as the entity is struggling to raise funding in the market." In August Finance minister Malusi Gigaba said there are no plans to privatise SAA. <br/>
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SIA and Lufthansa Group launched a joint venture covering flights between Singapore, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium Oct 1. Additionally, flights operated by SIA, Lufthansa and SWISS between Singapore and Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich will be included in a revenue-sharing agreement between the two airline groups. The joint venture agreement was originally signed Nov 2015, and SIA-operated flights between Singapore and Dusseldorf began July 2016. The Competition Commission of Singapore approved the JV in Dec 2016. SWISS began daily flights between Singapore and Zurich this past March, and Lufthansa is planning to reintroduce Singapore-Munich service from March 2018. <br/>