South Africa to oppose Airlink's bid to halt SAA creditors meeting

South Africa plans to oppose an application by regional airline Airlink to put South African Airways into provisional liquidation and prevent a meeting of SAA’s creditors to discuss a restructuring plan, the government said on Monday. Airlink was a franchisee of state-owned SAA for over two decades, an arrangement that allowed SAA to sell tickets and fly passengers on Airlink flights. SAA still owes some fees to Airlink, making the latter an unsecured creditor. SAA went into a form of bankruptcy protection in December and since then state-appointed administrators have been trying to see what they can salvage. SAA’s creditors were due to meet on Thursday this week to consider a proposed business rescue plan for the airline. The restructuring plan, which would involve laying off about 90% of staff, leaving just 1,000 jobs, will cost at least 10 billion rand ($575.5 million). That is on top of the 20 billion rand that has been spent keeping the airline afloat over the past three years. But the Department of Public Enterprises said on Monday it had been notified of a court application by Airlink to stop the meeting taking place and that unions had separately taken action to stop the meeting.<br/>