South African Airways (SAA) is pursuing a new northern Asian partnership after restructuring its South-East Asian routes through extended codeshares with allies Singapore Airlines (SIA), Thai Airways International and Japan Airlines (JAL).
An announcement is expected soon, but SAA will only say that it is talking to several airlines, including Cathay Pacific Airways.
Analysts say a Cathay tie-up would place SAA in an equal position to that of each of the major global alliances, ahead of its pending privatisation. The national carrier already has partnerships with Star's Lufthansa, Thai and SIA, oneworld's British Airways and American Airlines, KLM (Wings) and Swissair (Qualiflyer).
Chief executive Coleman Andrews confirms that American, KLM/ Northwest, Lufthansa/SIA, Swissair and Virgin will be bidding for a stake in SAA. He says that SAA is negotiating with 25 airlines worldwide to improve its route network. "We're putting together a network that involves high frequency flying to major hubs with strong alliance partners, that connects to hundreds of new markets."
Andrew has raised speculation about the Cathay link by acknowledging that the northern Asian region will be served primarily from Hong Kong. From 31 January, SAA will replace twice-weekly services to Osaka via Bangkok with three weekly flights to Hong Kong, connecting with JAL flights to four Japanese destinations.
From April, the new South-East Asian network will consist of a triangular service from Johannesburg to Singapore, Bangkok to Johannesburg. Flights between Singapore and Bangkok will be codeshares with SIA, while those between Bangkok and Johannesburg will be codeshares with Thai.
From mid-February, Amsterdam will be dropped from its European network in favour of concentrating on Frankfurt, London, Paris and Zurich.
Source: Flight International
