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State-owned airline South African Airways (SAA) will fly between Johannesburg and Durban again from 4 March this year.

SAA went into business rescue in December 2019 and exited business rescue 16 months later in April 2021. It started commercial flights again in September of that same year after it stopped 15 months before in May 2020.

“We have been constantly evaluating our route performance and waiting for the data to guide us on the timing or the Durban relaunch.

“We are delighted that the time is now right to add this important route back to the SAA network and further support the recovery of South Africa’s business and tourism sectors,” SAA said in a statement yesterday.

Its goal is to match capacity with demand as closely as possible and add new routes only where and when it “makes sense”.

Since its restart, SAA has only been flying between Johannesburg and Cape Town domestically.

It is currently also offering flights to Accra, Harare, Kinshasa, Lagos, Lusaka and Mauritius.

Due diligence of SAA’s chosen strategic equity partner, the Takatso consortium, is still under way. It is anticipated that the consortium, consisting of Global Aviation, which operates low-cost airline LIFT, and African infrastructure investment company Harith, will have to invest about R3 billion in SAA over a three-year period.

The interim board of SAA recently announced that it intends to institute internal investigations and disciplinary processes with the aim of “cleaning the company of all vestiges of its shameful past” as exposed in the Zondo Commission’s report on state capture.

The first part of the report includes several findings on SAA. It recommends that a number of former high-ranking SAA officials be investigated for fraud and corruption during the tenure of the airline’s ex-chairperson Dudu Myeni between December 2012 and October 2017. — fin24