South African Airways expands global network

South African Airways (SAA) is expanding its route network in Europe, North America, South America and Africa by adding exciting new destinations to each of these continents, according to Thevan Krishna, Regional Manager for SAA in Australia and New Zealand .

“The new developments will grow SAA’s international capacity by 8%. SAA’s network strategy is to fly to friendly international gateways, taking advantage of our Star Alliance partners’ hubs”, said Thevan.

“SAA will launch a third destination into North America next year. After terminating services to Atlanta in June 2006, the airline will begin four flights per week between Johannesburg and Chicago from 8 May 2007. Chicago is the largest hub of our Star Alliance partner United Airlines and will offer seamless connections to 91 destinations in North America on our Star partners.

“In addition to this, SAA flights from New York to Johannesburg will operate non-stop from May 8th, saving at least 6 hours of flying time for those passengers currently flying via Europe , and four hours if flying on our American competition. This decision has been taken as a result of the overwhelming success of the Washington to Johannesburg non-stop flights which started in October 2006.

“Currently SAA flies daily between Johannesburg and JFK in New York via Dakar in Senegal and daily between Johannesburg and Washington . Our growth into North American will make us a formidable contender for other carriers operating there. It also provides our customers with convenience, more choice and flexibility,” said Thevan.

“In South America, SAA will also launch new flights to Buenos Aires in July 2007 with 3 flights per week, as the airline’s second entry point into that region. These flights will allow SAA to capture emerging “South to South” traffic flows associated with growing trade and investment between Australia and emerging economies in the Southern hemisphere, including Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, India and Malaysia.

“These flights will offer good connections to 7 countries in South America, including Chile , Uruguay and Peru and will complement our current operations to Sao Paulo , as part of SAA’s dual gateway into South America . Sao Paulo which is operated daily is one of SAA’s most profitable routes and is growing in popularity. SAA will also add three additional flights per week to Sao Paulo bringing the total number of flights to 10 per week. Flights will originate in Mumbai , India and operate via Johannesburg to capture the growing trade between these countries generated by the IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) forum.

“SAA customers may soon be able to fly to a third South American destination, Rio de Janeiro , which the airline is currently looking at entering.

“In Europe, SAA will launch its fifth destination, Munich , offering seamless connections to 63 destinations in Europe, including 17 destinations in Italy . Munich will be launched on 1 July 2007, with 3 flights per week. Munich is a major hub of our Star Alliance partner Lufthansa. This new flight will broaden SAA’s network reach within Europe allowing SAA to tap into new business and tourists markets. Our Frankfurt flights are regularly full and the new Munich flights will strengthen our position in Germany .

“In Africa, SAA continues to “Bring the World to Africa and Take Africa to the World”. SAA will launch a new destination, Libreville in Gabon in April 2007 with 3 flights per week, in addition to our 20-plus other destinations on the African continent.

“ Gabon has established trade ties with Brazil and these flights will complement the additional services to Brazil in 2007. As a result of the growing economic development on the African continent, SAA is exploring new flights to some of Africa’s greatest tourist draw cards, such as Kilimanjaro, to stimulate tourism into Africa .”

“We have also improved our schedule between Perth and Australia to improve connections between African destinations and Australia , meaning much shorter waiting times and timely onward through-connections. As soon as these revised schedules have been finalized we will communicate this to our customers

“SAA is rapidly enforcing its position as the carrier of choice on the African continent,” says Thevan.  “These new route developments come as a follow on to recently announced new routes and improvements to SAA’s schedule making travel more convenient for customers and to facilitate demand on certain routes.”

New flights will also be launched twice a week from Johannesburg to Point Noire , Congo , and Bamako in Mali in January, 2007. Flights to Livingstone in Zambia now operate daily. A fifth service has been added to SAA’s route to India and a fourth to Accra, Ghana.  Additional flights are also operating to Frankfurt, London and Perth for the holiday season, allowing our Airbus fleet to be utilised more effectively.

“This is the most comprehensive overhaul of our network operations since we began flying more than 70 years ago, and I am confident that with all the improvements we will continue our role as Africa ’s leading airline,” Thevan concluded.

For more information on SAA flights please visit www.africaourhome.com

Report by The Mole