This sin;t good news for South African Airways (SAA). The country’s state-controlled carrier must raise “billions” of rand in government funding to continue operating. On top of this, the airline won’t break even for four to five years, Chief Executive Officer Monwabisi Kalawe said, reports Bloomberg.

In an interview with Bloomberg Africa, Kalawe said the financing could come as a guarantee or a capital injection. “Like any company whether its a private company or a publicly listed company — at some stage you go to your shareholders for financial assistance,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing.”

SAA is contending with loss-making routes, an aging fleet, rising fuel costs and a poor balance sheet.

“It’ll take us between four to five years to break even or make a small profit, so when we announce our results, we will tell the market that we made a loss again,” Kalawe said.

SAA wants to upgrade the engines of its aging Airbus SAS A340 wide-body fleet as part of a plan to lower fuel costs. And the company wants to buy 30 new aircraft yet can only afford to lease, Kalawe said.

“Because the balance sheet is weak, we have no option but to lease the planes,” he said. SAA is evaluating “tenders and of course the delivery of the planes is going to take place over a 10 to 15 year period.”

To turn things around, SAA is changing its focus to expand in faster-growing African economies after ending its unprofitable route to Buenos Aires and putting its Beijing flights under review.

An option “is to look at setting up a hub in West Africa,” Kalawe said. “That hub will allow us to connect southern Africa to West Africa and to the West. That’s really where our strategy is looking at.”