South African Airways mulls flight to the US in 2026
Almost closed during the Covid years, South African Airways is gradually resuming routes and reestablishing its route network.
With a very old fleet of Airbus aircraft, the state-owned carrier initially resumed flights to destinations on the continent in 2021, but in October 2023 it began the route between Cape Town and Sao Paulo, in Brazil.
A few days later it began flying to the Brazilian city of Johannesburg, both with Airbus A330 aircraft. In January 2024 it was time to debut the flight to Perth, Australia, with four-engine A340s.
Now, the airline wants to return to flying to the United States. The plans were revealed by South African CEO John Lamola in an interview during an event in Ghana, Airline Geeks said.
Without naming destinations, Lamola said the plan is to fly to US cities via Accra by the end of 2026.
South African Airways served New York and Washington until March 2020, when it suspended flights amid the pandemic. Shortly before, the carrier had even flown the route with leased A350 widebodies, in a failed attempt to attract more demand.
The launch of the new long-haul flights, however, is hampered by regulatory approvals and also by expanding the widebodies fleet.
Currently, South African Airways’ fleet has just two A330-300s and two A340-300s, in addition to 13 A320s and two Boeing 737-800s.
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Ricardo Meier
Creator of the website that started in 1996 as a magazine. He also writes on Brazilian websites AUTOO, MOTOO and MetrôCPTM.
