2023-05-28 08:00:35
Like the vast majority of aircraft crashes, there is no single cause for a fatal outcome, but a series of contributing factors which, combined, added together, and in the absence of adequate corrective action, end up producing the opposite of what is sought: preserving the collective interest, that is to say, that of goods and people.
In the case of the Sabena bankruptcy, two categories of factors can be distinguished: external factors and internal factors.
External factors:
The independence of the Congo will pose three serious problems, thus undermining the commercial relations that Sabena maintained with its former colony and, consequently, an important source of income.
In particular, the future status of the internal Congolese lines which could well escape Sabena as well as the loss of the character of “imperial cabotage” of the line between Belgium and the Congo. Which, by the way, allowed the maintenance of an anti-competitive strategy that Sabena had been practicing since the end of the Second World War.
Then there is the fate of the shares of Sabena, held by the colony and which were to revert by right to the independent Congolese state. So many elements that will force the State to take urgent measures which will result in particular in the takeover of 90% of the company’s shares.
Yes, except that the financial results were already catastrophic and that Sabena suffered, already at that time, from structural under-capitalization, totally assumed by the State, and thus forcing it to go into debt (too) heavily for continue its development. It is precisely on this sick body that one of the most deleterious internal factors will be grafted and developed, “the failure of the political decolonization of Sabena”.
As if that were not enough, the two oil shocks that occurred during the 1970s resulted in an increase in the price of a barrel of oil, which rose from less than $2 a barrel in 1972 to more than $30 in 1980. .
Finally, the deregulation of commercial air transport, first launched in the United States in the 1970s, and Europe’s gradual ban on subsidizing national airlines, which was, let us not forget, the business model of Sabena’s financing, will prove to be deadly for a company which:
1. Has a totally inadequate financial structure to cope with this paradigm shift.
2. Will never be subject to restructuring in the strong sense of the word, except for the implementation of a series of “questionable and therefore ineffective business plans”, which leads us to talk about internal factors .
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