ELLIS MNYANDU AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday
SOUTH African Airways’ (SAA) efforts to extend its African reach moved a step further this week when the carrier announced three new weekly flights to the Ugandan city of Entebbe, starting on December 1.
SAA Chief Executive Officer Coleman Andrews said the carrier also planned to increase its weekly flights to Zimbabwe from November 1.
A number of international carriers have been forced to cease servicing the Zimbabwean capital Harare because of political uncertainty and its cash-strapped economy. One of them, Austrian Airlines, halted stopovers in Harare on its Vienna-Johannesburg route in March.
SAA – headquartered in Johannesburg – is 20% owned by Swissair, while the SA government holds the remaining 80% through the transport utility Transnet.
Its move to tap into the Ugandan air travel market follows this week’s suspension of services by loss-making SA Alliance Air, which is jointly-owned by South African, Tanzanian and Ugandan interests.
SAA’s majority shareholder Transnet has a 40% stake in SA Alliance, which has grounded its operations pending a shareholder’s meeting to determine its future. It operated between Johannesburg, Dar es Salaam, Entebbe and London.
Transnet had financed SA Alliance’s operations from the start in July 1995 until March this year, when shareholders agreed to a new financing plan which required contributions from Uganda and Tanzania.
SA Alliance Director Chris Zweigenthal said that Uganda and Tanzania had failed to meet their financial obligations.
Last year SAA tried to buy a 49% stake in state-owned Uganda Airlines when talks broke down with Kampala.
SAA, which had been a loss-maker until last year, reported a R350m profit in the 12 months to March 31, 2000. SAA has also begun introducing its new-generation Boeing 737-800 planes for continent-wide and domestic use. – Reuters