Struggling South African Airways (SAA) is considering selling a minority stake to fast expanding Gulf carrier Etihad Airways as the African airline move to implement a 90 Day Action Plan that could steer it back to profitability.

Etihad, one of three Middle Eastern carriers transforming the airline industry with vast fleets of wide-body planes, is on a string of purchases that included a multi-billion-dollar investment in Alitalia SpA, Bloomberg reported.

“Etihad as a carrier is well known to take minority stakes in various entities and that option would be available to Etihad,” SAA Chief Executive Officer Nico Bezuidenhout told reporters in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

Etihad has embarked on an aggressive strategy of snapping up stakes in ailing carriers, feeding traffic to its hub in Abu Dhabi while providing financial support, economies of scale and managerial advice for members of his so-called equity alliance.

South African Airways’ financial woes have gotten worst this year, despite a couples of bail outs from the government. It has been made clear that there will be no more capital injections from the national treasury.

SAA is surviving off state-guaranteed loans and has presented a 90-day rescue strategy to the government that includes 1.3 billion rand ($113 million) in annual savings.

Travel24 quoted Bezuidenhout saying during the media briefing held at Airline Park in Johannesburg, that the airline desperately needed to address its solvency issues, a rapidly deteriorating competition position and ongoing governance weaknesses.

“We need to look at long term returns to service and meet that debt, as well as fulfill the obligations that SAA has to its shareholders,” Bezuidenhout said.

He said the airline was considering cutting some of it “deeply loss making routes”, but did not detail which routes would be reconfigured, highlighting that some are “politically sensitive” and not wanting to erode the value of the asset he was trying to protect.

The government sold 20 percent of SAA in 1999 to Swissair, which pioneered the concept of an alliance anchored via minority stakes, only to buy the shares back in 2002 when the European carrier went bankrupt.