Buoyed by its track records as one of the leading aircraft operators in the World, South African Airways has informed of its readiness to begin three (3) schedules per week flight operations via Abuja-Johannesburg routes starting from 26th of January 2016.
Boosted by its track record of being the best airline in Africa for fourteen consecutives times, South African Airways at a press briefing in Abuja announced the opening of its second gateway in Nigeria to consolidate on the first, opened in Lagos in 1998.
Aaron Munetsi, South African Airways Regional General Manager, Africa and Mid-East, in his inaugural address stated that the need to expand the business ties between the two countries informed the idea of opening the Abuja-Johannesburg route.
“We are so proud to be an African Airline that we want to share everything that we have in terms of experiences and expertise with our fellow Africans, for us, there is no responsibility without leadership. Today, we are so proud to be announcing the commencement of South African Airways operations in Abuja. We have been operating in Lagos since 1998 and we have been developing our business and relationship in Nigeria so much so that it has become absolutely necessary for us to come to Abuja, the nation’s capital to open the second gateway. Come 26th of January 2016, we are going to commence operating three flights per week from Johannesburg nonstop to Abuja”.
Munetsi who also said the SAA mandate was to develop its footprint in Africa assured that variant fleets of aircrafts will be brought in with highly skilled technical expertise to begin operations in the nation’s capital.
‘’We are bringing a variant fleets of aircrafts with technical expertise. We have our own technical base which is a separate business unit only own by South African Airways and the South African government. In this technical base, we look after aircraft from what we call the line checks to a check, B check, C check and D check. The D check is the most complicated engineering check you can do on the aircraft; you basically stripped it down and rebuild it afresh. We have airlines like Lufthansa, the Pacific, Australian airline and the rest of them send their airlines to us in Johannesburg to do the D check. We have this expertise that we share with the rest of Africa Continent. We are in the process of establishing MROs (maintenance repairs overhauls) in places like Nigeria, Ghana and so forth, this expertise is what we want to share with the rest of Africa.
He stressed that SAA will begin its operations in Abuja with best of its technical expertise reiterating that as a member of Star Alliance; the airline was going to expose the Abuja route to more than a hundred and eighty (180) airports worldwide starting from the 26th of January 2016.
“We are going to expose our African youths to the rest of the world as we fly to more than sixty (60) destinations worldwide. We are so proud of this development that we believe it is just a matter of time before we increase the frequencies from the three to daily. Munetsi said
South African High Commissioner, Lulu Louis Mnguni in his address expressed delight hoping that the SSA opening of Abuja route will further accelerate the trade relations between the two countries with investment in tourism taking the centre stage.
“Africa is of primary importance to our foreign policy, we put first the consolidation of African Agenda in our principles. We are glad this day has finally arrived where we have the South African Airways, our pride will being able to fly from Abuja to Johannesburg and of course back to Abuja. We hope that this will further help as a catalyst to accelerate our trade relations with Nigeria and to as well assist in promoting people to people’s contact. This I believe will also attract both countries to tourism. We salute SSA for this initiative and we are really looking forward to the 26th of January when SAA will officially fly from Abuja to Johannesburg.
KEHINDE ABDULSALAM
