South Africa Airways is expected to restart operations to Perth by March 31.
South Africa Airways is expected to restart operations to Perth by March 31.
The airline’s interim chief commercial officer, Tebogo Tsimane, told a Travel News Weekly webcast this week the state-owned airline planned to use Airbus A330s to launch two long-haul routes to Perth and Sao Paulo by the end of the current financial year ending March 31 2023.
However, as yet, the flight details are not loaded into the airline’s reservation systems.
The airline went into bankruptcy during COVID and has slowly been restarting services.
Return of SAA will be welcome news to Perth holiday makers and corporates alike, with Qantas set to terminate its Johannesburg service on March 25.
SAA also plans to resume flights to Frankfurt, London, Washington and New York with Airbus A350s this year.
"The routes that we've picked for this year are the routes that will be easier and quicker for us to start,” Mr Tsimane said.
SAA resumed flights in September 2021, after a $US570 million bailout.
But it was left with a small fleet of just six aircraft.
Since then, the fleet has grown to nine aircraft, a long way from its pre-COVID fleet of 44 aircraft.
