South African Airways (SA, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) will likely lease, not acquire, its new fleet of thirty widebody aircraft CEO Monwabisi Kalawe has disclosed. In light of the airline's already weak balance sheet, Mr Kalawe said SAA will require "billions of rand in government funding" and "won't break even for four to five years". As such, acquiring new aircraft was not an option. “Because the balance sheet is weak, we have no option but to lease the planes,” Kalawe told Bloomberg newswire. SAA is evaluating “tenders and of course the delivery of the planes is going to take place over a 10 to 15 year period.” In the interests of cutting costs associated with its current ageing long-haul A340 fleet (one A340-200, eight A340-300s and nine A340-600s), SAA is also looking to upgrade the aircraft's engines, Kalawe noted. The loss-making South African carrier is yet to unveil its much anticipated recovery programme; a requisite condition made for it to access over USD600million in bailout funding from the state fiscus last year.