South African Airways: More aircraft to meet demand

South African Airways (SAA) is adding more aircraft to their fleet in order to keep up with the current demand for flights…

SAA grow their fleet

To help deal with the increased demand for flights, South African Airways is bringing additional aircraft into service, in the form of three Airbus A320s, tallying up the total number of A320s to five. The first of these aircraft was delivered on 25 September, reports Travel News, and the remainder is due to arrive every month afterwards.

The airline currently operates seven Airbus aircraft – two A320s, three A319s, an A330-300, and an A340-300. 

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John Lamola, SAA Executive Chairman, said it was all about supply and demand.

“The addition of extra seat capacity in the market enables the achievement of an equilibrium between supply and demand in the market that affects the pricing of air tickets.” Lamola claimed.

SAA Chief Operating Officer, Tebogo Tsimane, added that they would continue to follow a cautious risk-adjusted trajectory.

“As we increase fleet size to match the needs of the growing network schedule, we are encouraged that our strategy to cautiously re-enter markets abandoned due to the COVID pandemic has served us very well during the past twelve months, and we will continue to follow that cautious risk-adjusted trajectory,” he said.

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Over the last two weeks, the airline also increased the aircraft size on two of its busiest routes: Cape Town and Harare. The Harare to Johannesburg route is now also serviced by the larger A330 aircraft on three of its daily frequencies.

SAA also revealed that it would be replacing its A340-300, which it uses as an additional aircraft to support the schedule during required fleet maintenance or when capacity demand requires the deployment of a larger aircraft.

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