South African Airways (SAA) said on Sunday it strongly objected to news reports headlined ”SAA Sex-Pest Shock”.
A Sunday newspaper had made a number of highly defamatory and untrue allegations, and its article was riddled with errors, the airline said in a statement.
Johannesburg Sunday newspaper City Press reported that in one alleged incident, a man forcibly undressed a woman before throwing her onto a boardroom table. He then allegedly sexually penetrated her.
SAA said in the statement the opening paragraph was of serious concern to SAA, in which the reporter libels the entire senior management of the airline by stating that they are all implicated in ”a massive sex scandal” and that the airline is ”degenerating into a haven for sex pests”.
Even a rudimentary examination of the facts would show that not a single current senior executive at SAA was in any way implicated in ”a massive sex scandal”, SAA said.
The two cases currently pending involve middle managers, each of whom reported to general managers.
The suggestion that SAA was ”degenerating into a haven of sex pests” implies that SAA condoned deviant sexual behaviour, the airline said.
Yet the article detailed the immediate disciplinary steps SAA took against the offenders named in the article.
”SAA has acted promptly and within the law to stamp out such behaviour.
”In each instance, allegations were met by immediate suspensions, with investigations and disciplinary processes being activated.”
SAA was seeking legal advice and would not allow ”this example of shoddy, defamatory and baseless reporting to go unchallenged.” — Sapa