africanflyer

As of March 30, South African Airways will place its code on daily service operated by Emirates between Cape Town and Dubai.

South African Airways last weekend increased its Johannesburg, South Africa to Entebbe, Uganda frequency to daily service.

South African will boost its capacity on African routes by 10% as part of a plan to bring the airline back to profitability. Increases are as follows:

- A fourth weekly flight to Luanda, Angola
- Nairobi will see an increase in frequency from 7x to 10x per week (as posted here a few months ago)
- Mauritius will see an increase in frequency from 7x tp 8x per week
- Larger aircraft will be used on some or all services to Entebbe, Dar Es Salaam, Kinshasa, Blantyre, Lilongwe, Windhoek

The airline will also re-route four out of seven flights per week to New York via Accra, Ghana, while the remaining three will be routed via Dakar.

South African Airways is to add three weekly flights from Johannesburg to Nairobi, Kenya, according to Business Daily Africa. The new flights, to be operated on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, will complement the airline’s existing daily service.

South African Airways announced today that it is embarking on a restructuring program that will last some 18 months. The program, which includes retrenchments, also calls for the grounding of six B744s as well as the closing of the Paris route as it is under-performing.

South African Airways and its Star Alliance partner United Airlines expanded their codeshare agreement on March 15 to include the following cities: Atlanta, Ga.; Austin, Texas; Charlotte, N.C.; Cleveland, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Detroit, Mich.; Houston, Texas; Indianapolis, Ind.; Kansas City, Mo.; Miami, Fla.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; and St. Louis, Mo.

South African Airways and Malaysia Airlines have signed a codeshare agreement which will see, pending government approval, each airline placing its code on domestic and regional flights operated by the other. The deal, which is set to take effect on June 1, will see South African’s code on Malaysia’s flights between Johannesburg and Kuala Lumpur, as well as domestic Malaysian and regional cities. Malaysian will also place its code on certain SA domestic and regional flights.

South African Airways and fellow Star Alliance partner All Nippon Airways will, subject to government approval, begin to code share on the former’s Johannesburg - Hong Kong route and the latter’s services between Hong Kong and Osaka.

South African Airways is reportedly dropping Zurich from its network at the end of April, in favour of operations via codeshare with its Star Alliance partner Swiss. Swiss International serves Johannesburg daily using A343s.

South African Airways is reportedly set to open routes to a number of cities in Africa, Europe and South America in 2007, in addition to the recently announced service to Chicago.
- Munich, Germany will be served 3x per week effective July
- Buenos Aires, Argentina will be served 3x per week
- Libreville, Gabon will be served 3x per week effective April
- Bamako, Mali will be served 2x per week
- Pointe Noire, Congo will be served 2x per week

Other cities under consideration are Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

No schedules have been posted at this time.

Flight International reports that South African Airways is looking to add A340s to its fleet to add frequency to London, Frankfurt and Sao Paul. These aircraft will likely be leased, given that Airbus does not have delivery slots until at least 2008. The airline is also reportedly planning to start service to Chicago in April.

South African Airways’ new low-cost domestic airline was launched as “Mango” on Monday. The airline will initially operate two B738s between Johannesburg and Cape Town, with anticipated increase to four by next year.

South African Airways inked separate deals with EgyptAir and Rwandair Express to codeshare on flights operated by each airline from their respective bases of Cairo and Kigali.

Begining with the upcoming winter schedule, South African Airways will improve services on existing routes as follows:
- Services to Washington Dulles will be rescheduled to provide passengers better connections out of Dulles, and operated using A346 aircraft. Additionally, the Washington - Johannesburg service will be operated nonstop.
- Frequency to Mumbai, India will increase from the current 4x per week to 5x per week, with no operations on Wednesdays and Fridays
- In order to meet peak season demands during the months of December and January, at least one additional flight per week will be added to London, Frankfurt and Perth

South African Airways has signed a codeshare agreement with Singapore Airlines which will allow it to place its code on Singapore’s flights to Johannesburg and Cape Town. Singaport in turn will place its code on SAA flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London

South African Airways has signed codeshare agreements with Saudi Arabian Airlines whereby South African will place its code on Saudi-operated flights between Johannesburg and Jeddah. Flights are operated twice per week on Mondays and Thursdays using B772 aircraft.

South African Airways is reportedly dropping its current daily flights between Johannesburg and Atlanta in the United States, in favour of daily flights to Washington Dulles via Dakar, Sénégal. Washington Dulles is a hub one of Star Alliance’s founders, United Airlines, which now places its code on SAA flights to the United States.

South African Airlines has announced its intentions to launch a low cost airline before the end of the year. The new addition would operate in competition with similar airlines 1Time and kulula.com.

South African Airways, which is set to join the Star Alliance on April 10, has announced that it will terminate its existing frequent flyer program agreement with Qantas on April 9. Qantas is a founding member of rival alliance oneworld.

South African Express has placed an order for two 74-seat Dash-8-Q400s from Bombardier to join its regional fleet made up of older Dash-8s and the CRJ, all manufactured by the same company. This order effectively makes the airline the first customer for the type in Africa.

The Tanzanian government is seeking to remove South African Airways from the management of Air Tanzania following consecutive losses by the airline, which are attributed to a failure to expand the network as quickly and extensively as originally planned. It also accused SAA of not meeting a large part of the management agreement.

It is to be recalled that South African Airways bought a 75 percent stake of Air Tanzania for $20 Million.

South African Airways and South African African Airlink have announced that they have extended their existing agreement which was set to expire at the end of this year until October 2006. Under the agreement, SA Airlink provides feeder service to the bigger company.

United Airlines and South African Airways, both part of the Star Alliance network, have signed a codeshare agreement allowing South African Airways passengers arriving into Washington Dulles from Johannesburg to connect on United’s flights to Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas.

Once regulatory approvals are obtained, United will place its own flight numbers on SAA’s flights to Johannesburg, as well as intra-African flights and those between Johannesburg and Europe.

It is to be recalled that SAA partnered with American Airlines serving New York and Miami, then with Delta Airlines serving Atlanta and New York. SAA now flies to New York, Atlanta and Washington DC with up to daily flights per destination.

South African Airways has announced its intentions to suspend Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, Durban to Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg to George routes effective October.

Air Tanzania has increased its flights to Johannesburg from Dar Es Salaam from daily to 10x per week during the strike at South African Airways which has disrupted the airline’s operations. The new flights will depart Dar es Salaam at 20h00 arriving in Johannesburg at 22h40, and departing Johannesburg at 23h20 arriving in Dar es Salaam at 03h00.

South African Airways owns 49% of Air Tanzania, while the government of Tanzania owns the rest.