N830MH

Rumor! Rumor! Rumor!!

South African Airways may return to Miami. Last time they drop nonstop JNB-CPT-MIA in early 2000s. They switch to FLL. They became codeshare with Delta.

Let the speculation begin.

evanb

Zero chance.

SAA have spent a lot of time recently re-configuring the North American routes, switching some of the Dakar flights to Accra, considering using Abidjan too. There has been talk of some additional frequencies as a result. The thought is that these would go to JFK, but they are considering other airports, but given that they would have zero feed at Miami I think it's a non-starter. If they add a new station I am certain it would be a JetBlue or United hub.

Cheetah_SA

Pretty sure it was always FLL. It certainly was when I flew the route in 1997.

Seems a bit pointless discussing a rumour when we have no idea of its source and hence plausibility. We could start dozens of threads saying "Rumour: SA may return to NRT, CPH, FCO..." (it's a very long list!!) and amuse ourselves with the speculation - but it would be pointless.

SAWorldVoyager

I'll throw one in

JNB-PER-AKL-PER-JNB

Source: In my head, would make my current commute much easier.

evanb

Let's just get the full list out there, except Africa:

Americas: EZE, GIG, LAX, MIA, FLL, ATL, IAH
Oceana/Asia: SYD, MEL, PEK, BOM, KIX, SIN, CMB, TPE, BKK, DXB
Europe: VIE, BRU, LCA, CPH, CDG, HAM, DUS, ATH, TLV, MXP, FCO, LUX, AMS, LIS, MAD, LPA, ZRH, MAN

jsnydcsa

+1

+1
Though how I miss that ATL-CPT direct flight that I was on once and a while in the early 2000s. Specifically remember it from 2003. Once and a while it seemed to stop in JNB before continuing on. But, I vaguely recall it being direct (skipping JNB) once or twice.

gcuk

I definitely flew JNB-CPT-MIA in Feb 1997. The route took just over 18 hours but it was a lovely long, uninterrupted nights sleep. I much preferred that flight to the middle of the night wake up call at SID en route to JFK.

Cheetah_SA

That list is even more impressive than I thought it would be. Nice work.

You're probably right - given that I also thought I "remembered" Tokyo and evanb says it was Osaka. Maybe my memory is just failing totally.

Indelaware

This is almost certainly false rumor started because Bezuidenhout recently spoke at the IATA meeting in Miami.

Patriots

If you were to read correctly on the other site you would know it didn't happen at IATA. It happened at MIA.

evanb

SAA were at the IATA meeting in Miami. They got invited round to a nice lunch at MIA. I wouldn't read much into it.

If MIA didn't meet with every airlines that they could have during the IATA meeting then they wouldn't be doing their job.

Patriots

They were at the meeting at IATA but they also had a private meeting at MIA.


I hope BOS is in their plans too.

evanb

So it was a "private" meeting? What does that mean?

Okay, it's time to end this. I know of the content of the meeting. MIA requested the meeting. They requested a meeting with 20 plus airlines since the IATA meeting was in their town (yes, they were simply taking advantage of the IATA meeting). Yes, SAA have thought about what further destination they might serve in North America (this is not a secret, see the CAPA report) if they add a destination, and no MIA is not on the shortlist. They have no feed at MIA, and the O&D market is too small, even to and from any intermediate point. SAA's operations to North America is very much centered around hubs, O&D traffic cannot sustain any route to North America from South Africa. And really, they are not considering adding a third destination any time soon.

Indelaware

If it was not for the alliances, then there would be plenty of feed at MIA for SA to tap into. AA operates a major hub there. But because of the alliances, few if any passengers would fly an AA-SA interline trip. Nor would there be a reasonable AA-SA interline fare offered.

If SA were to expand in the US, they would likely choose to fly to another UA hub - e.g. ORD, IAH, DEN, SFO, LAX. Service to any of those points would require a technical stop.

Sabasi

ORD-JNB is only 269 miles farther than ATL-JNB.