South African Airways (SAA) has decided to suspend African regional flights until May 2020 following an earlier decision to suspend all international flights.
On Friday, SAA announced that it was suspending all international flights with immediate effect until 31 May 2020, to support the government travel ban aimed at stopping the transmission of the Coronavirus (Covid-19).
As a direct consequence of this suspension, there was an immediate drastic reduction of demand for the African regional flights. SAA is a network carrier, which means that a significant part of the regional bookings demand is fed by the passengers that travel to or from international destinations.
Therefore, the suspension of international flights has resulted in the airline not being able to operate its normal network. This resulted in the operation of regional flights not being commercially viable anymore.
Flights to the following destinations have been suspended as of 20 March 2020 until 31 May 2020: Accra (Ghana), Lusaka (Zambia), Harare (Zimbabwe), Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe), Windhoek (Namibia), Lagos (Nigeria), Entebbe (Uganda).
This decision means that SAA will only continue to render services on its domestic route between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Customers can also visit our website, www.flysaa.com, for further updates.
