South African Airways (SAA) is stepping up its drive for UK business travellers this winter with new A340s on its main Heathrow routes.
The new aircraft will be used on the London-Cape Town and London-Johannesburg routes from November 1.
The classes will be cut from three on the existing Boeing 747s to two on the A340s: premium and economy with up to 42 seats in the former.
The airline has also expanded its travel agent sales team in the UK with one person dedicated to the corporate market.
But the airline is also rationalising its other European routes. Following the closure of the Johannesburg-Zurich route earlier this year, the Paris-Johannesburg route will be closed in October.
But SAA's two German routes, Frankfurt-Johannesburg and Munich-Johannesburg are still going strongly.
Marcus McKenzie, the airline's regional manager for the UK and Ireland, said passenger numbers on the well-established Frankfurt route were "robust."
On the Munich route, which started in July, the load factor was 75%.
Mr McKenzie said SAA was going through a process of "simplifying and right sizing the business" which involved looking at all routes and their profitability.
But the UK and German was SAA's biggest markets in Europe with the Germans the third largest in the world after the British and Americans.
"Our UK market is growing by 3-4% a year. We have a huge corporate market which uses these routes with the business class 90% plus full throughout the year. It is a market which does not have peaks and troughs," he said.
Mr McKenzie said the market was also likely to grow to meet corporate demand for two major sporting events in South Africa, the British Lions Rugby Tour in 2009 and the Football world Cup in 2010.
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