South African Airways planned to increase its long-haul fleet from 24 to 31 fuel-efficient new generation aircraft in the next five years and to replace its short-haul fleet entirely, SAA chief executive Siza Mzimela told pilots and union representatives yesterday.
The company had asked the government, its sole shareholder, for a capital injection of between R4 billion and R5bn over the next five years to finance the acquisition of the new fleet, Mzimela said.
She said figures were under discussion but the new aircraft would enable it to “make massive savings on its jet fuel bill while providing better and more frequent connections to key destinations”.
She pointed out that SAA was currently facing “the same challenges as all global airlines through increasing pressure on margins and greater competition”.
Many other airlines are calling on their shareholders for support in acquiring the newest, most fuel-efficient planes.
Aircraft manufacturers are now producing new models that use at least 20 percent less fuel per kilometre per passenger and are experimenting with biofuels that cause less pollution than fossil fuels and would be cheaper to produce on a large scale.
Both Airbus and Boeing have been offering their latest models to SAA, and domestic and regional airline Comair will take delivery of the first of a new fleet this year.
Mzimela said a recent study by Oxford Economics showed that aviation contributed R50.9bn a year to the South African economy, including 227 000 direct and indirect jobs. It now carried “approximately 50 percent of international and domestic passengers to and within South Africa”.
Since taking over two years ago, the airline’s current board and management had “scored major successes in ensuring the profitability of the airline as it served its markets better”.
But the airline needed the most efficient equipment in an environment “where oil costs are clearly set to remain well beyond $100 (R766) a barrel and competition increasingly and aggressively cherry-picks on many of SAA’s routes.” Middle Eastern airlines, in particular, with large and growing fleets of the newest aircraft, are increasing the number of destinations they serve worldwide.
SAA has recently grown its route network in Africa by adding flights to Ndola on the Zambian copperbelt, Bujumbura, Kigali and Pointe Noire. It has also introduced a non-stop flights to Beijing and increased frequencies to Accra, Dar es Salaam, Entebbe, Harare, Mauritius and Lusaka.
It has chosen to replace its short-haul fleet of Boeing 737-800 aircraft with more fuel-efficient Airbus A320s. It would derive additional savings through the fact that the A320s shared common cockpits, many of their parts and standard operational and maintenance procedures with SAA’s existing A319 and long-haul A340 fleet. - Audrey D’Angelo