South Africa's Mango grounded as money runs out

Mango Airlines is to be mothballed from May 15 until such time as it receives funding from the South African state, which has been asked to place its low-cost carrier into bankruptcy protection until July 2021. This is according to a leaked internal memo to staff by Mango’s Acting CEO William Ndlovu on April 22, in which he disclosed that the government had been asked to support decisions by both Mango’s Board and the interim Board of mother firm South African Airways to put the cash-stricken carrier into business rescue. Asked for comment, Department of Public Enterprises spokesman Richard Mantu said: “The Department is in discussions with the Board of Mango and (Interim Board of) SAA about the repositioning of the subsidiaries in light of the delayed funding.” DPE has been trying to divert ZAR2.7b ($188m) of an allocation of ZAR10.5b for the implementation of SAA’s business rescue plan to its subsidiaries, which includes Mango. However, a cash injection for Mango was not provided for in SAA’s business rescue plan, which did however state that the carrier by 2020 needed recapitalisation of ZAR1b.<br/>