{"id":807659,"date":"2025-01-20T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=807659"},"modified":"2025-01-20T14:42:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T12:42:00","slug":"new-flight-launches-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/807659\/new-flight-launches-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"New international flight launches in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South African Airways has launched its new flight to Tanzania&#8217;s capital, Dar es Salaam, which kicked off on Monday, 20 January 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The carrier said this marks an important relaunch of the flight under its new operations and will boost economic growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The flights will run daily between Johannesburg and Dar es Salaam. They will cater to both direct and connecting passengers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Joburg to Dar es Salaam<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Departs:<\/strong> OR Tambo International Airport @ 22h00<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Arrives:<\/strong> Julius Nyerere International Airport @ 02h30<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dar es Salaam to Joburg<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Departs: Julius Nyerere International Airport @ 05h10<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Arrives: OR Tambo International Airport @ 07h55<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Dar es Salaam is one hour ahead of Johannesburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dar es Salaam is East Africa\u2019s largest city by population size and is an important regional economic and logistical hub, as well as a gateway to popular tourist attractions in the region, SAA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa, meanwhile, accounts for a significant proportion of foreign direct investment in Tanzania, with the two countries sharing trade in agricultural products, precious metals, chemicals and machinery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SAA interim CEO, Professor John Lamola said the new flight also strengthen&#8217;s the airlines plans to boost its presence across the African continent and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Air freight executive Nozipho Mbatha <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=owkhYKdQg0M&amp;ab_channel=SABCNews\">said<\/a> that, given the airline&#8217;s recent relaunch, regional routes are currently SAA&#8217;s most successful and best-performing lines\u2014so focusing on expanding these is in the airline&#8217;s interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This would set the carrier up for greater success in establishing more international routes beyond the continent, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In November 2024, SAA expanded its services to Harare (Zimbabwe) and Lusaka (Zambia) to 12 flights per week, up from 10 and seven flights a week, respectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Flights to Lagos (Nigeria) and Accra (Ghana) have been increased from three to four times a week, while SAA is flying to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) five times a week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SAA also began flying to the DRC\u2019s mining hub, Lubumbashi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Outside of Africa, SAA increased its intercontinental flight frequency to Perth in Australia to five weekly flights from 7 January 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first intercontinental route to Sao Paulo, Brazil was launched in October 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSAA\u2019s regional network has emerged as a top performer, contributing significantly to the revenue of the SAA Group. More importantly, these regional connections are crucial for the broader economic growth of South Africa,\u201d Lamola said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The expansion and relaunch of flights on SAA represents a significant turnaround for the airline that, just a few years ago, was in business rescue and facing liquidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The state-owned airline, which has been a net drain on government finances for decades, surprised with a a turn to profitability for the 2022\/23 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In November 2024, the group reported a net profit of R252 million \u2013 the first time the airline has been in the black since 2012, and a wild swing from the R23.5 billion in losses recorded in the four years prior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lamola said that the positive results showed that the airline could move forward as a successful and profitable business that was not reliant on the state <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2023, the South African government injected over R38.1 billion into SAA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While it still needs a capital injection from an equity share partner, the group is looking at a future bringing money in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 2022\/23 financial year, SAA operated between 6 to 8 aircraft during the financial year, serving up to 9 destinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since the period ended in March 2023, the airline has increased its routes to 16, with more to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/800707\/massive-swing-for-saa-first-profit-in-over-a-decade\/\">Massive swing for SAA \u2013 first profit in over a decade<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SAA launched a new international route today, adding to its growing network of regional lines &#8211; and setting it up for more to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":745289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-807659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807659"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":807665,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807659\/revisions\/807665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}