South African Airways (SAA) along with its Business Rescue Practitioners (BRPs) have announced plans to dramatically restructure the state-owned airline. SAA will cease operations on a number of international and domestic routes from Saturday 29 March 2020.
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In December last year, the embattled state-owned airline SAA was placed under business rescue following years of mismanagement and racking up billion-rand debts along the way.
‘The initiatives we are taking now will strengthen SAA’s business, one of the practitioners said in a media statement. ‘We believe that this should provide reassurance to our loyal customers that SAA is moving in the right direction. We are focused on our mandate to restore SAA’s commercial health and create an airline that South Africans will be proud of.’
On the domestic route network, SAA will continue to serve Cape Town but on a reduced basis. All other domestic destinations, including Durban, East London and Port Elizabeth, will cease to be operated by SAA on 29 February 2020. Domestic routes operated by Mango will not be affected by the changes.
SAA will also cease operations on certain international and regional flights, but a number of services will be retained.
All customers booked on any cancelled international and regional routes will receive a full refund, the airline stated. Customers booked on cancelled domestic flights will be re-accommodated on services operated by Mango.
Following Thursday’s announcement, SAA does not intend to make any further significant network changes. This is meant to help passengers and travel agents ‘feel confident’ about booking future travel with South African Airways.
The flight schedule for February is meant to remain unchanged, however some cancellations should be noted and may be viewed in this travel advisory.
Here is a table indicating the change in international, regional and domestic flight routes effective from 29 February 2020:
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