South African Airways (SAA) has plans to relaunch flights to Europe and the US once it has more widebody aircraft in its fleet.
SAA FLEET AND ROUTES
The airline, which resumed scheduled services in late 2021, after emerging from a lengthy business rescue process, now has a fleet of 20 aircraft.
This includes several Airbus A320s, A330s and A340s.
SAA currently operates a route network comprising sixteen destinations.
Within South Africa, the airline flies between Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town and Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth).
In Africa, it flies to numerous destinations, as well as to Perth (Australia) and Sao Paulo (Brazil).
SAA FLIGHTS TO US AND EUROPE
Destinations in the United States and Europe are in the pipelines for SAA.
The airline aims to resume some of these former routes in the near future.
In a recent interview with eNCA, SAA’s CEO said that this was now a priority.
Prior to SAA halting all flights in 2020, it flew to New York and Washington in the US, and in Europe, to London, Frankfurt and Munich.
The airline has also previously operated flights to Zurich, Milan and Paris amongst other cities in Europe.
AIRCRAFT SHORTAGES DELAY RESTART OF US & EUROPE FLIGHTS FOR SAA
SAA must acquire additional widebody aircraft to realise its intentions of relaunching flights to Europe and the US.
The airline currently does not have enough widebody aircraft to relaunch such routes.
According to SAA’s newly appointed CEO, Professor John Lamola, the airline is considering newer second-hand models such as the Airbus A350 for these services.
NEXT-GENERATION WIDEBODY JETS
Production delays on new widebody aircraft mean that airlines must wait years for next-generation widebody jets to be delivered.
Therefore, sourcing second-hand next-generation widebody aircraft would enable SAA to restart these long-haul routes much sooner.
Lamola said that the airline would indeed look at operating newer aircraft models as they reduce environmental impacts while offering enhanced passenger experiences.
Before the global pandemic, SAA had four next-generation Airbus A350s on lease.
Two of these were leased from Air Mauritius while two were obtained from lessors in other parts of the world.
In fact, SAA aims to build its fleet to 50 aircraft within the next five years.
