Originally Posted by
jsnydcsa
That said. In the mid-2000's didn't SAA fly direct from ATL to CPT? I couldv'e sworn I was on a few of those flights. Though to be honest, whether it was the drinks from the lounge or onboard, or the hangover afterwards, there may have been a stop in JNB. I pulled a couple of old itineraries and it seems so...
Many of SAA's flights from Johannesburg to the US over the years have had stops due to payload limitations out of Johannesburg, varying between Ilha do Sal, Lagos and nowadays Dakar and Accra. At some point flights to Atlanta (and before that Miami) used Cape Town, but that was quite some time ago.
Assuming SAA were to look at a JNB-CPT-IAD routing (as opposed to the current JNB-DKR/ACC-IAD), the CPT-IAD leg would be far too long for a A333 and really pushing the payload of an A333 or A343.