zoobtoob

Don't give Rouge ideas

Jagboi

No, they are long since gone. The last 3 747-433's (fins 341-3)were combi's and were unique in having a special firewall between the cargo and passenger areas, and seperate air handling/ HAVC systems making them heavier than standard, and something of an orphan. There were returned to the Lessor in 2004. Latest I could see 342 was in the Dubai Air Wing, 343 is Saudi Arabian Cargo and 341 is with MyCargo.

The ex Canadian 747-475's (fin 381-2, 384-385) are scattered. 381 is re-registered N278AW, 382 is retired, 384 returned to lessor in 2002, 385 RTL in 2003. Looks like 381,382,384 went to Argentina and 385 went to Philippine Airlines.

The Lev

TAM would probably make AC a sweet deal to take back the A345's.

ACflyerDE

Only FIN 384 could theoretically be put back into service, according to atdb.aero all others have already been part-out.

LittleYHZ

In some cases while starting new rouge routes. 6 767s were coming off lease in 2016 and being retired. Were being the key word. AC told investors in the Q3 report it has renewed the leases. Retirements of 767s are on hold for growth.

Really it will be much like this year. 767s were replaced by 87s come the fall so they could be converted to join rouge. Put another way 58 mainline wide bodies at this year end, 59 at next year end, 70 the following. Or 64 including rouge, 71 including rouge and 86 including rouge.

When this whole rouge/growth project started they had 54. Its a growth rate of about 50% from 2013 to end 2016 in international seats... Dubai Delhi fun takes 3 Aircraft... to put it in perspective.

Either way the addition of routes and frequencies means they no longer are buying enough 787s to actually replace all of the 767s. They still have 29 of them... Sure they went to rouge but they added new routes...

industry_killer

This article is suggesting that SAA could be thinking of adding a YYZ route.

http://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-s...ng-champagne-c

CloudsBelow

I'm not overly familiar w/ TAM ops, Why do you say this?
For SYD/Australia, I presume?

Geoflying

I remember years ago being on one of those from YYZ-LHR. You could go into the cargo area from the passenger area (if you had the key to the door, of course). Before take off the FAs invited a bunch of the kids on the flight to go back there and meet the horses that they were transporting to Europe. My son, who was about 7 at the time I think, was very impressed.

(Sorry about the thread creep - it's a nice memory of when flying was fun)

winnipegrev

I think he's wondering if AC would ask to take back the A345s TAM presumably has sitting in storage (unfinished lease term? AC still owns them). I believe the poster was referring to AC once again operating them which IMHO has statistically no chance of happening. I don't think those A345s will fly for another airline ever again.

CloudsBelow

Ahh, OK. Re-read the post. Makes sense now.

AC might reacquire and deploy their old A345s on the routes too far for their yet-to-be ordered A380s .....

cooleddie

"One proposal is to move a London flight to Abu Dhabi to help reduce an annual loss of 300 million rand on the U.K. route and take advantage of rising demand for Gulf destinations, the presentation shows. Flights to Beijing, which is its biggest loss-making route, could be canceled and a route to Toronto started instead, the document shows. SAA said last week it would start a new Abu Dhabi route on March 29 in partnership with Etihad."

So this is interesting. Beijing is currently served by the A340-600 on SAA. The aircraft range would be there for JNB-YYZ but would it actually be profitable with so much capacity, weight and higher fuel consumption?

jcamp028

Hard to understand how London and Beijing could be loss leaders, yet YYZ would be profitable.

Swarez

Only thing I can think of is London has lots of flights a day, plus additional flights to Europe. PEK maybe Emirites does better on the route than SAA direct?

YYZ would be a fairly captive market, I go there once a year and am allowed to fly J on company dime as do most in my industry. But any carrier is going to have a tough time with ultRa Long hauls unless feeding a large hub - something SAA doesn't really have compared to Europe, me3.

The Lev

It might just have the range to go YYZ-JNB, but I suspect a technical stop would be required to fly JNB-YYZ.

LittleYHZ

Itll work approximately until AC comes along with the 789 and runs them off the route.