South African Airways (SAA) started its new route between Johannesburg and Washington DC via Accra, Ghana, on August 2. The inaugural flight carried Ghanaian Transportation Minister Dzifa Aku Attivor, as well as other dignitaries, on the Accra–Washington leg and was greeted as it taxiied in at Washington Dulles International Airport by a ceremonial waterspray.

“Introducing more travel options on the African continent is a major development and achievement for the airline as part of our Long-Term Turnaround Strategy (LTTS), which sets growth on the African continent as one of our key objectives,” stated SAA executive: Africa Hub projects Kendy Phohleli. “SAA’s decision to route some of its North American- bound flights to Ghana is based on sound business principles as there is considerable demand for passengers wanting to fly between Ghana to [sic] the USA. We anticipate that this route will add considerable opportunities for the growth of tourism and trade relations between Ghana and the United States of America.”

The flights from Johannesburg to Washington via Accra are scheduled for Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, with the return flights on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. In addition, every Saturday there is a flight between Johannesburg and Accra, with the return flight departing late that same day, and there are also three flights a week from Johannesburg to Abidjan (in Côte d’Ivoire) via Accra on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, with the return flights leaving late the same days.

The route to Washington via Accra will be flown by SAA’s four- engined Airbus A340-600 airliners. These are configured with 42 premium business class seats (capable of becoming fully lie-flat beds) and 275 economy class seats. Three of the already existing weekly flights to Washington via Dakar, Senegal, will continue.

As part of the creation of the new route, SAA entered into a commercial cooperation agreement with Ghanaian carrier Africa World Airlines (AWA). As a result, SAA can offer connections to elsewhere in Ghana and West Africa while AWA can offer connections to Johannesburg, Washington and elsewhere through the SAA network. Phohleli described this deal as being “of a long-term strategic nature”.

“True to our promise of improving connectivity on the continent, the agreement with AWA will offer SAA customers from Washington and Johannesburg seamless connectivity via Accra to other destinations in Ghana, such as Kumasi, Takoradi and Tamale, as well as to Lagos, Nigeria,” he affirmed. “Forming a local partnership with a domestic airline was part of our plans of strengthening SAA’s presence in West Africa.”

AWA operates a small fleet of Embraer ERJ-145 fifty-seat regional jets. “The codeshare agreement [with SAA] provides AWA with tremendous opportunities to grow our prowess with routes on the West African network as well as . . . to become the much-needed feeder and defeeder link that taps into a very significant US market for all customer types,” averred AWA COO Apiigy Afenu. “AWA has made significant progress in recent years. “From a small domestic airline, it has become an important regional player . . . We are pleased and proud to partner with them [SAA] as the preferred choice of a Ghanaian carrier.”

Separately, and a few days earlier, it was confirmed that SAA’s acting CEO, Nico Bezuidenhout, had stood down from the post and returned to his permanent job as CEO of the SAA group’s low-cost airline, Mango. He was appointed acting CEO of the group in November and oversaw the development and implementation of a 90-Day Action Plan intended to stabilise SAA and lay the foundations for the implementation of the LTTS. He has been replaced by another acting CEO, SAA human resources GM Thuli Mpshe.