SAA halts flights to Durban

THE joint Business Rescue Practitioners (BRPs) of South African Airways (SAA) yesterday announced that all other domestic destinations, including Durban, East London and Port Elizabeth, will cease to be operated by SAA from Saturday, 29 February 2020.

The moves comes as the state-owned Development Bank of Southern Africa had to come to the rescue of SAA to the tune of R3.5 billion to prevent its collapse. Late last year the airline was placed under business rescue.

In a statement BRP said the move was in line with SAA’s commitment to take urgent action to conserve cash, and create a viable platform for a successful future, key measures need to be implemented now.

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“The initiatives we are taking now will strengthen SAA’s business. 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,” they said in a statement.

SAA will continue to operate all international services between Johannesburg and Frankfurt, London Heathrow, New York, Perth and Washington via Accra. Regional services to be retained include from Johannesburg to Blantyre, Dar es Salaam, Harare, Kinshasa, Lagos, Lilongwe, Lusaka, Maputo, Mauritius, Nairobi, Victoria Falls, Livingston and Windhoek.

Also on Saturday, 29 February, SAA will close the following regional and international services from Johannesburg to Abidjan via Accra, Entebbe, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Luanda, Munich, Ndola, and Sao Paulo.

On the domestic route network, SAA will continue to serve Cape Town on a reduced basis.  Domestic routes operated by Mango will not be affected by the changes.

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They said all customers booked on any cancelled international and regional routes will receive a full refund. Customers booked on cancelled domestic flights will be re-accommodated on services operated by Mango.