[cwoodward]

It reported that South African Airways are poised to post a 500M Rand profit against a forecast loss of 1.5B Rand.

The airline will also operate its first long-haul route for a very long time on 31st October establishing a new route linking Cape Town and São Paulo twice a week and also later in the year from also Johannesburg with São Paulo twice weekly. There airline will use its 2 X A330s
The 2nd is due to arrive next month and is one of 6 new aircraft that SAA have the green light to lease over the next few months.
The route will represent the first international route ex Cape town for 11 years.
Prior to the pandemic the airline operated daily flights to Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London Heathrow, Munich, New York John F. Kennedy, and Perth and the reformed airline has vowed to re-establish these routes and has kept their owned slots at LHR in preparation.

Personally I have a soft spot for the previously excellent SAA having flown with them often over the years.

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sparkyflier, AndrewinHK

[MartinJ]

Would love to see them come back to Europe (incl. the UK). Flown them a few times from London and Munich in the late 2000s and found both their business and economy class product superb at the time. The only fly in the ointment are the frivolous surcharges on reward flights.

[sparkyflier]

I too have fond memories of SAA having flown them a few times in the 90s, on their 747s, A300, 737 and A320. Service was always excellent and food and drink good quality and generous.

Sadly as widely know once politicians got their pals and relatives to run the airline with no aviation business experience things went pear-shaped as well, but I wish then well going forward.

Just to add to cwoodward’s comments above, the JNB-GRU flights start on Nov 6th – one week after the CPT flights and will be operated by A340 as opposed to A330.

I suspect once more planes arrive next long haul routes will be Perth and I guess Frankfurt, but flights to UK/EU do not enable the airline to get much utility out of the aircraft due to sitting on the ground in LHR or FRA during daylight hours.

And re their current “long haul” routes, these are currently only Accra and Lagos.

I hope SAA will become a success story for all South Africans in the coming years.

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cwoodward

[Jacobwhite]

I would also love to see them come back to Europe, I have never flown them, but I’ve heard some really great opinions about them.

[cwoodward]

South African last month have signed a code share agreement with Lufthansa and Swiss reportedly will joining the partnership in the near future. Reports mention that this strategic move comes as part of the Star Alliance network, aiming to enhance travel to Africa.The deal apparently starts later in August.

Under the partnership agreement, Lufthansa-operated flights will now extend their reach into Johannesburg and Cape Town with SAA connections also to other african destinations. South African Airways-operated flights will soon include Johannesburg to Frankfurt thus once again opening up European destinations for SAA passengers.

Swiss will join the codeshare agreement I believe in September expanding the network with Zurich-Johannesburg and beyond flights

There has been a previous codeshare relationship between the airlines dating back to the early 1990s this apparently ended when SAA ceased to be able to operate due to financial issues.

I will be interested to see how particularly OneWorld respond to this activity by Star.

[AndrewinHK]

I have 3 flights booked with SAA for December, pricing was very competitive, and it will be my first time flying with them. The SAA website is troublesome especially when it comes to payment, I needed to call SAA’s call center in SA, lovely staff, very helpful and processed everything.

[cwoodward]

Yes the website is still very clunky.
I look forward to your report on the flights that I hope you will post.
It’s now 6 years since I was able to fly with SAA

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AndrewinHK

[Travelcruiser]

SAA was my first business class flight back in 1995 when I was a young tv researcher heading to SA to cover the Rugby World Cup. SA005 to Johannesburg departed at 7:30pm on a 747 and business class was Gold Class in a 2-3-2 configuration. Food, wine and service was amazing. On the return to LHR I was upgraded to Blue Diamond First Class. Can you image my excitement as a 20 something completely new to the world of premium travel getting business and first together for the first time. It ruined me forever! Lol

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[cwoodward]

SAA seems to be making decent progress with its re build.

The fleet is now 8 aircraft however there is another A330 to arrive I understand next month followed by 3 more A320’s ‘soon’ (but no time- line mentioned)
Seemingly the demand is strong as announced today is that (at least) 2 X B737-800s have been damp leased from SunExpress for a few months (and will arrive this month) until the additional A320’s arrive.

When it properly relaunched in 2022, SAA operated only four routes. The route network has now grown to 13 domestic and regional destinations. With the first international destination Sao Paulo to launch this month from the Cape followed later in the month also from J’burg and then on November 14th Abidjan Côte d’Ivoire the network will further increase.

Prior to the pandemic, SAA operated seven long-haul routes from Johannesburg, including Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London Heathrow, Munich, New York JFK, Perth, and Sao Paulo and SAA interim CEO John Lamola said that they hope be flying these routes again by early 2025.
It is rumoured in the local media that the additional A330 will be used to relaunch the very strong and important Perth AU route.

I just hope that that this seemingly impressive recovery is solid as it seems to me that SAA needs a strong international shareholder to take up the remaining 49% shares held by the SA government…….perhaps a large Asian airline ?

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sparkyflier

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