Luyanda Makapela and Nthambeleni Gabara
6 March 2008
South African Airways (SAA) is to continue expanding its route network across Africa and adding capacity to existing routes, while cementing its membership with the Star Alliance, in order to turn itself into the leading airline on the continent, says company CEO Khaya Ngqula.
"Our plans for Africa are to keep with our mandate to be an African carrier with a global reach," he said at the airline's headquarters at OR Tambo International Airport outside Johannesburg on Wednesday.
"We are planning to add capacity so we have more flights and destinations to our African route network criss-crossing the continent."
Two additional flights per week to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania were recently launched, while one additional flight per week to Luanda, Angola has been introduced to the schedule.
More seats will be added to flights to Mauritius and Livingstone, Zambia, while the airline also plans to add another African destination to its route in the fourth quarter of this year and a further two African destinations over the next 12 months.
He added that Star Alliance had allowed SAA to extend its network to reach beyond the points served directly to 897 destinations in 160 countries.
"SAA fully supports the drive from the alliance to further build on its presence in Africa," he said. "As SAA, we see our primary role in the Star Alliance network as bringing customers from around the world to Johannesburg, the financial capital of the continent, and then taking them into the rest of Africa."
South African Airways is the only African carrier out of 11 Star Alliance members that service African destinations, and also has the strongest presence on the continent with 19 destinations, particularly in east and west Africa.
This follows the alliance endorsing opportunities for the further enhancement of airlines in a workshop at OR Tambo International Airport this week, with Star Alliance CEO Jaan Albrecht saying the alliance was proud to have SAA as its first member in Africa.
"Our aim is to make our alliance offerings available to many more customers in more countries in Africa," he said. "By exchanging our experience, knowledge and skills, we will further strengthen our partnership for the benefit of alliance airlines, the employees and customers."
Star Alliance is currently highlighting travel and tourism opportunities in Southern Africa to travellers from across the world, as part of its Southern African Skies campaign, which won an award for Best Travel and Leisure Campaign at the European Media and Marketing Awards for 2007.
High fuel prices
Asked if oil increase would have a negative effect on increase of airfares, Ngqula said it was impossible to increase prices: "What can be done is to recover costs from levies as we do not want to discourage people from flying," he said.
In November 2007, SAA announced its hope to reach a 7.5% profit margin by March 2009, as a result of its restructuring process, which was aimed at renegotiating working conditions, cutting unprofitable routes and reorganising the whole business.
The local airline is receiving support from the Star Alliance during its restructuring, with both parties working towards saving costs and improving efficiencies.
Current projects that the alliance members are involved in include a common IT platform, earning and redeeming frequent flyer programme miles across Star Alliance carriers, fuel management, electronic ticketing, online customer surveys and strategic sourcing.
SAinfo reporter and BuaNews
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