SAA on plans to fly to Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Namibia this festive season

As South African Airways hopes to return to full capacity, the state-owned carrier says it restart a number of flights during the festive season.

SAA says by the festive season, it will have restarted flights to one airport each in Namibia and Zimbabwe, and to two cities in Malawi.

The embattled national carrier, SAA, announced this development on Thursday and also promised details – such as the frequency of flights – only in the coming weeks.

However, News24 reports that it is not yet clear how SAA will price tickets on those routes in the Southern African region.

According to the announcement, the cash-strapped SAA will be flying to Blantyre and Lilongwe in Malawi, to Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls, and Windhoek in Namibia.

SAA also promised more frequent flights to Accra (Ghana), Harare, Lusaka (Zambia), Kinshasa (DRC), and Mauritius while also unveiling plans to increase the frequency of flights to and from Cape Town and Durban.

SAA will not be flying beyond Africa yet, but said that plans are “underway” to “launch SAA’s first post re-start intercontinental route during the first quarter of the new year.”

The airline had previously requested to keep the rights to fly to countries such as the United States of America, Germany, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Australia.

“The announcement of the flights to neighbouring countries comes after SAA met with the International Air Services Council (IASC), where it appears to have reached a settlement,” reports News24.

This comes after IASC’s announcement in September to cancel SAA rights to some routes because they were not operational, once a standard procedure in the airline world.

The news portal has it that SAA now says it “retains all its historical route traffic rights, following SAA’s voluntary relinquishing of the number of frequencies on the destinations it is not currently servicing.”

Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa said he wants transparency at the national carrier as he addressed parliament on Thursday.

“Around the world, airline companies get formed and in no time they collapse, and they collapse under the heavy burden of rising jet fuel prices and other operating costs as well,” said Ramaphosa.
“The SEP is going to really reposition SAA, and the government will be a shareholder at 49%, but we will have the golden share and the brand name will continue.

“We hope that SAA will be repositioned completely. It is already showing signs of that because it is rather trading well at the moment.”