South African Airways (SAA) has had fairly a couple of years. In late 2019, the corporate entered enterprise rescue, because the airline had been shedding cash for years, and that’s not even accounting for the impacts of the pandemic. As a part of this, the airline removed most of its planes, and fully discontinued lengthy haul service. Thankfully in 2021, the airline emerged from enterprise rescue, although solely as a shell of its former self.
Ever since, the airline has slowly been resuming routes, beginning with regional flights. In October 2023, SAA added again its first lengthy haul route, to Sao Paulo, Brazil. The airline has now unveiled plans to launch a second lengthy haul route.
SAA will fly from Johannesburg to Perth
As of April 28, 2024, South African Airways will likely be launching 3x weekly nonstop flights between Johannesburg (JNB) and Perth (PER). The service will function with the next schedule:
SA280 Johannesburg to Perth departing 8:55PM arriving 12:20PM (+1 day)
SA281 Perth to Johannesburg departing 2:40PM arriving 7:35PM
The 5,173-mile flight is blocked at 9hr25min eastbound and 10hr55min westbound. The eastbound service operates on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, whereas the westbound service operates on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. One cool side of this flight is that it’s some of the southerly lengthy haul routes on this planet, as you may see under.
SAA intends to make use of its sole Airbus A340-300 for the route, that includes a complete of 253 seats. This consists of 38 enterprise class seats and 215 financial system seats. SAA refers back to the A340-300 as “a marvel within the world skies,” and claims the aircraft is “synonymous with being spacious, snug, dependable, and able to dealing with long-distance flights with ease.” Lol…
SAA’s logic for including flights to Australia
For these of us not intimately aware of the South African aviation market, it is likely to be stunning that with SAA resuming lengthy haul flights, Perth could be the second vacation spot added again. So, what’s the logic for this route? It’s value maintaining in thoughts that the airline served this route for a few years earlier than going by means of enterprise rescue, so this isn’t a completely new service.
Right here’s how John Lamola, CEO of SAA, describes the logic for this route:
“Apart from the worldwide interconnectivity potential of this route, Perth has lengthy been a favoured vacation spot for South African and Australian travellers, with roughly 80% of our goal market being visiting household and pals. The recommencement of the route offers a neater and direct passage for each leisure and enterprise travellers, selling commerce and cultural change between South Africa and Australia.”
“We’re dedicated to rising SAA right into a revered chief within the world aviation sector. Perth is however one indicator of this ambition and offers us confidence that our imaginative and prescient of increasing our footprint to over 20 locations this 12 months will likely be realised.”
Lamola claims that including again service to Perth is in keeping with SAA’s “strategic plans to scale its operations to a worthwhile degree by leveraging SAA’s distinctive capabilities as a nationwide provider with extensive physique plane that may present South Africa with lengthy haul intercontinental air connectivity.”
The airline additionally highlights how one can now ebook a Southern Hemisphere journey package deal, touring all the best way between Perth and Sao Paulo. Truthfully, that’s one heck of a routing!
Whereas SAA’s lengthy haul route community is unconventional, there’s one thing to be mentioned for the provider’s technique. The airline is working in markets the place it faces no competitors from Gulf, European, or US carriers, that are in any other case the most important lengthy haul competitors to South Africa.
Traditionally the airline has confronted some challenges with each its European and US service:
- To Europe, SAA confronted heavy competitors from nearly all the most important world European airline teams, plus plane utilization was fairly awful, since planes typically sat in Europe all day, working redeye flights in each instructions
- To the USA, it’s simply such an extended flight that it’s onerous to make the economics work for a primarily leisure oriented route; SAA additionally flew to New York (JFK), the place it had no connectivity by means of Star Alliance accomplice United
Backside line
As of April 2024, South African Airways will launch flights between Johannesburg and Perth, representing the second lengthy haul route operated by the airline. SAA’s two lengthy haul routes at the moment are each throughout the South Pacific, and a minimum of have good plane utilization and aren’t too lengthy.
Whereas SAA’s lengthy haul community may appear unusual to some, there’s one thing to be mentioned for specializing in routes with restricted competitors.
What do you make of SAA’s new Johannesburg to Perth route?
