SAA has already made sweeping changes to its brand-new international schedule.
The changes are a mix of delaying one route’s restart for some months, putting one route on hold until November and thinning out the frequency on another.
A release to the trade quotes the airline’s Manager Commercial Performance South Africa, Shabnam Vadachia, saying: “Part of our promise to you is to act in a financially prudent manner, to offer transparency in our business decisions and give you advance notice of planned changes. Following nearly a month of sales, SAA is making some proactive schedule adjustments to better match capacity to emerging demand and ensure you have all the information you need to plan with certainty.”
- Maputo – the daily flights that should have begun on September 27 will not start until December.
- Kinshasa – three flights a week were promised from September 27. Now the airline says: “selected flights have been removed for sale during September and October 2021”.
- Lusaka – the daily flights originally promised, starting from September 27, have been scaled back. The airline says: “Schedule will be adjusted to four flights per week during September and October with daily flights resuming from November 2021.”
On the airline’s international schedule, the daily flights to Harare and three flights a week to Accra appear to be unchanged.
SAA says the changes have already been actioned in the GDS and customers who were booked on these flights will be re-accommodated on to partner airlines or another service. Alternatively, these tickets can be refunded or converted to a credit voucher for future use.
