5 January 2009
South African Airways (SAA) has celebrated its tenth year of operations to Nigeria.
The airline in December 1998 began flight operations to the country, as part of efforts to help facilitate bilateral relations- political, economic, and social- between South Africa and Nigeria.
Ten years later, the route is one of the airline's most successful with its load factors more than doubling and steadily increasing.
The SAA Head, Business Development, Jason Krause told Daily Trust that demands for business class seats is particularly high on the route as capacity was recently increased as part of its expansion plans into Africa.
According to him, the four weekly frequencies which were previously serviced by Airbus A340-200s are now operated with Boeing B747-400, a larger aircraft to increase seat availability.
He said while SAA is adding capacity as a short-term solution to feed demand and the growing passenger numbers, it would ultimately like to increase the number of frequencies per week on the route.
Krause said the airline is also thinking of introducing direct flight to Nigeria's capital city, Abuja, following the trail of other international carriers like BA, Lufthansa, KLM, Emirates, and Ethiopian Airlines.
The hope became a reality, as the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) between the South Africa and Nigerian governments was recently amended to allow for the operation of ten weekly flights per country.
The SA - Nigeria BASA has also been amended to allow for the operation of three weekly all cargo services per country.
There has been a phenomenal growth in tonnages, resulting in an increase in the Nigerian market share from 4.1% to 8.2% over a period of 24 months.
With Nigeria being one of the economic powerhouses on the continent, SAA Cargo believes there is significant potential to increase its operation on this route.
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