Me again
SAA actually only schedule stops at Sal Island, Cape Verde Islands, on the westbound trip from South Africa to the USA. The eastbound flights are nonstop JFK/ATL to Jo'burg or Cape Town.

Johannesburg is elevation 6,000 feet, and that saps the 747-400s ability to make it nonstop to the US against the prevailing wind, with sufficient fuel, and with sufficient takeoff performance for the high altitude departure. Jo'burg certainly used to have the longest commercial runway in the world to maximise performance of departures from there.

Oh no. Now I've started another thread on the world's longest commercial runway!

Longer runways certainly help at high elevation airports but at some point you become climb limited and no amount of additional runway will increase your allowable takeoff weight.

Air Afrique flies from NYC to certain points in West Africa. Ghana Airways flies JFK-Accra. And Ethiopian flies to Addis Ababa from NYC and Washington. They all seem to make it work (or are they loss-making, government-subsidised carriers)?

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by WHBM:
Me again

Quote:

The eastbound flights are nonstop JFK/ATL to Jo'burg or Cape Town.

I remember reading somewhere else (maybe the Delta forum?) that there is now a required refueling stop in both directions from ATL and JFK.

I can only quote the SAA schedule:

From New York JFK NY US to: Johannesburg Int'l
Non-Stop
SAfrican 202
From:JFK To:JNB
5:55 PM 3:30 PM
14h:35m
744

From Johannesburg Int'l to: New York JFK Int'l NY US
VIA: Sal Amlcar Cabral Int'l CV
SAfrican 201
From:JNB To:SID
8:00 PM 2:05 AM
Con't Flight
From:SID To:JFK
3:25 AM 7:10 AM
18h:10m
744

The stop was added only on ATL-JNB service, and was due to construction at ATL reducing the runway length (and thus the fuel load). This was supposed to be for a couple of months and should be back to non-stop ATL-JNB by now. The JFK-JNB flight was not affected. As a passenger the stop is very annoying, it comes at the worst possible time in the flight and really disrupts getting any rest on what is a very long trip.

Ah, yes, I remember that well. In July of 1984 I flew Air Afrique round-trip between New York and Abidjan on a DC-10, with a stop in Dakar. The frequency of this flight was only once per week back then. I spent several weeks in various parts of Cote d'Ivoire, or Ivory Coast.

For the return flight, we sat in the airport for hours waiting due to a problem with the airplane. I forget what that problem was now. Anyway, all of us scheduled to be on that flight were almost certainly doomed to spend another week in Abidjan, when we were finally alerted that we will definitely take off that day.

It turns out the Ivorian Olympic team had to get to the United States for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. If it were not for them, we would not have departed that day - or that week, for that matter.

I just thought I would share this story with everybody as this thread brought back wonderful memories of Africa to me, including being the first American ever to set foot in some of the remote villages in the Ivory Coast.

Air Afrique has been out of business since Feb. 7, 2002 (according to the Just Planes Welcomes You website).

I flew from LA on Pan Am to NYC and then on Zambia Airways from JFK to Jo-berg via Banjul, Gambia and Lusaka, Zambia....on a horrible DC-8 in 1990! Delayed one full day in both directions. Was offered 15 cows for my girlfriend in Lusaka by a Zambian official (do you think they would have let me check 15 cows on that DC-8 for the trip home?) Boy, I miss the glory days of air travel.

Wow! What an eye-opener!

Track is not only correct, but here is a story concerning the current financial state of African airlines.