Quality airlines in Africa are more then I thought at first but few have the reach SAA does. Kenya Airways, Ethipian, Egypt Air & RAM are all airlines flying modern A340, 777 or soon to be 787. Ethiopian and Kenya Airways( 49% owned by KLM) are almost next to each other about half down the east coast of Africa flying modern aircraft to Europe, America and Asia. These two have small regional fleets and about 6 to 10 wide bodied aircraft. Egpyt Air & RAM are fly to America, Europe and Asia, serve North Africa well but are sparse in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The only airline in Africa to have links to all major cities on each continent with daily and double(sometimes triple daily) is SAA. They have the regional network in Southern Africa, the intercontinental network to Sao Paulo, Hong Kong, Sydney & Perth, New York, Washington, Atlanta(not much longer as deal with Delta is going bye-bye), LHR, FRA, CDG, ZRH and a few others. Hey they fly to LHR daily from Capetown, how many African airlines fly a daily intercontinental flight from an airport other then their pricipal hub? SAA only
SAA went to Star, I think ONEWORLD would have been better for them since they code share with Qantas & Cathay. SAA's relationship with Lufthansa to Germany is strong as well as their service to the UK. I wonder about some decisions SAA makes as a State-owned airline after the Coleman Andrews years, no more JFk nonstops I think is a really bad decision. Boeing's new 777-200LR would be really great for SAA, if Qantas can fly Syndey to LHR nonstop then SAA could do JNB to JFK nonstop both ways, that would really be something. A340-600 are nice airplanes but nonstop to JFK is even more impressive. SAA has an aircraft decision, They ordered Airbus aircraft in 2000(A320 & A340) but the 747-400's are getting old, all 8 are flying mostly to the UK with SAA only First Class service. I have geard the A380 mentioned but does an airline the size of SAA need another type?
