Originally Posted by
Cheetah_SA
I highly doubt they ever lost money on that route. Those excellent loads were achieved despite fares that they would have killed for on other routes. It seemed obvious to me at the time that they were selling the family silver because they were desperate for short-term financial gains regardless of the long-term cost.
CAPA did some analysis when SAA closed the route and showed that SAA's yields on CPT-LHR-CPT was half that of JNB-PER-JNB and a third less than JNB-LOS-JNB, JNB-ACC-JNB and JNB-BOM-JNB. Given how BOM particularly was burning money it's hard to see that CPT-LHR-CPT was a money spinner given, especially when taking into account the UK APD and aircraft ground time at LHR.
Originally Posted by
Cheetah_SA
I wonder if it would have made sense to fly to Gatwick. Not a *A hub and far fewer possibiliities for connecting traffic but isn't London sustainable on an O&D basis?
SAA have not used LHR for connections with the exception of AC and some UA for many years. The UK APD and visa rules made it useless for connections to Europe and Shengen area and they pushed their own North American traffic through JFK and IAD. It's a much higher cost option than their other hubs.