South African Airways' (SAA) acting chief commercial officer (CCO) has decided to call it quits, and is not renewing his contract.
Tebogo Tsimane will take over the position from Simon Newton-Smith, SAA confirmed on Thursday afternoon.
Newton-Smith will leave the airline at the end of August.
According to SAA, Tsimane, "has several years of experience in senior roles within the commercial and operational environment at SAA".
In the view of SAA's interim chair and CEO, Professor John Lamola, Tsimane has "an exceptional understanding of the complexities of the new aviation operating environment and knows exactly what SAA needs to do to remain successful and profitable".
At the same time, Lamola lauded Newton-Smith for the much needed stability he brought to SAA's commercial operation during his year as acting CCO.
Newton-Smith said:
"After a year leading the team and with the foundation set for the next chapter in SAA’s rebuild, now is the right time for me to hand the reigns to Tebogo," he said in a statement.
SAA is still awaiting final approval of a strategic equity partnership deal with the Takatso Consortium - announced already more than a year ago. Takatso is expected to provide much-needed capital for the airline's continued operations - to the tune of R3 billion over a period of three years.
Takatso has made a merger application to the Competition Commission to approve the deal on an urgent basis. The application comes as critics continue to question what they regard as a lack of transparency surrounding the specifics of the deal.
What is known is that Takatso will acquire 51% of SAA's shares and would need to put in about R3 billion in working capital into the airline over a period of two years.
Fin24 recently reported that the SA government and SAA are being sued by Toto Investment Holdings, which wants the sale of a majority stake to Takatso scrapped and the process re-run. Toto points to a lack of transparency of the process.
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has, however, told Parliament in the past that details not provided will protect SAA’s competitiveness.