Rustenburg - The South African Airways (SAA) must not receive a bailout from government, the new socialist party Rebuild South Africa (RSA) said on Monday.

"The Minister of Finance [Tito Mboweni] has stated the obvious truth about the state of the enterprise, which in our view warrants the closure of the airline, the need to start afresh on a clean slate and develop models and contingency plans to run the airline successfully to a position of profit-making," said president Blessings Ramoba.

"We are of the view, that, the state cannot continue to fund the loss-making and decaying airline using taxpayers money."

He said the airline was a massive drain on the fiscus.

"It has recorded losses of more than R20 billion to date, since 2011 and at present continue to run at a sky-rocketing massive loss. The airline as projected losses until it reaches a break even in 2020/2021 financial year. At present we note the airline’s turnaround plan which requires another R21 billion (over the next three years) bail-out by the state to keep operating and in order to become sustainable," he said.