SA Express Airways was a state-owned regional airline, wholly owned by the Department of Transport. Established in 1994 to serve domestic feeder routes, it became a textbook case of SOE looting: cadre deployment to boards without aviation expertise, irregular procurement enriching connected parties, maintenance neglect that endangered lives, and ultimately liquidation.
Under CEO Inati Ntshanga (2009-2018), the airline accumulated R2.9 billion in cumulative irregular expenditure as flagged by the Auditor-General, who issued qualified or disclaimer opinions for multiple consecutive years. In several years, SA Express failed to submit financial statements to Parliament at all. The core looting mechanism was irregular procurement — maintenance contracts, fuel supply, consulting, and IT systems awarded without competitive bidding to connected parties.
The consequences of corruption were not just financial but life-threatening. The SACAA — one of the few regulators that actually acted — suspended SA Express's Air Operator Certificate twice: in 2016 and February 2018. Findings included maintenance failures, expired aircraft certifications, and pilot training deficiencies. Corruption-driven maintenance neglect was putting passengers at risk.
The airline operated commercially unviable routes serving political rather than market needs, guaranteeing ongoing losses requiring ongoing bailouts which in turn provided ongoing opportunities for procurement irregularities. Financial statement suppression avoided scrutiny.
COVID-19 in March 2020 was the final blow to an already terminally insolvent airline. Provisional liquidation was ordered in April 2020, with the Department of Transport not opposing the application. The final order came in July 2020 — approximately 700 employees lost their jobs. In a final act of looting, approximately R60 million in PPE was irregularly procured even as the airline was being wound down — procurement for a non-operational airline at inflated emergency prices.
SA Express's collapse completed the trifecta of state aviation failure: SAA (business rescue, R30B+ in bailouts), Mango Airlines (liquidated 2021), and SA Express (liquidated 2020). By 2021, South Africa had zero functional state-owned airlines — a complete destruction of state aviation capacity at a combined cost exceeding R30 billion.