South African Airways (SAA) has announced plans to introduce the new A330-300 on the London to Johannesburg route from March 2018 and will adjust frequency to a single daily service.
The airline announced remediation on its domestic and regional markets at the end of 2017 and says it is now turning its attention to its international network. From 20 April, SAA will reduce the frequency on the London route from a double daily service to a single flight per day.
Justifying the move, Vuyani Jarana, CEO of SAA, said: “We have decided to focus on those areas of our business that will enhance our efficiencies, bring more value to our customers and produce improved overall performance of the airline. Network optimisation is one such are that can contribute towards containing our costs and we introduced some initiatives that must yield dividends to return the business to commercial sustainability in the shortest time possible.”
Jarana said the new A330-300 will be put into service from 25 March and that the aircraft “will afford customers a significantly improved onboard Business and Economy product”.
The A330-300 is designed to be more environmentally friendly and offers more Business class seats than any other aircraft currently in the SAA fleet at 46, as well as 203 seats in Economy.
Business class is set up in a 1-2-1 configuration, offering all passengers a forward-facing lie-flat seat with direct access to the aisle. Each seat is equipped with a 15-inch touchscreen in-flight entertainment unit, while passengers can also use a dedicated app to download additional content prior to their flight.
Meanwhile, Economy seats feature a 10.1-inch high-resolution screen, individual USB charging ports and access to shared PC power points. The cabin maintains the 2-4-2 configuration.
Jarana concluded: “We will continue to operate the daily non-stop SA234/235 service, which offers customers convenient connections into and out of Johannesburg on SAA and our codeshare partners’ domestic and regional networks.”
SAA said any customers currently booked on SA236/SA237 flights after 20 April can choose to be re-accommodated on the earlier services thanks to a new policy.
flysaa.com