[Kurt A]

South African Airways (SAA) aims to meet Australia’s growing demand for South Africa by providing daily services from Sydney and Perth to Johannesburg by 2010.

SAA currently operates direct services between Sydney and Johannesburg as part of a codeshare with Qantas. It also has direct services from Perth on SAA aircraft. Plans to increase the number of direct Sydney services from five to seven flights per week by April 2009 will use Qantas aircraft.

Direct flights to Perth, which aim to be in place by 2010, will use SAA’s own aircraft. But non-stop services to Sydney using SAA aircraft would depend on the availability of aircraft and fuel prices, the carrier said.

“Australian growth was 6.9% last year, which was one of our best results on record, but it is currently economically viable for us to operate through Qantas,” said Thevan Krishna, head of Australasia for South African Airways. “With the fuel prices at the moment it’s becoming quite risky to look at new routes.”

SAA said it will also look at better aligning flight times out of Australia to stimulate further demand. SAA is moving to a mixture of A340-200s and A340-300s for some of its Perth services, and from November to January SAA will use an A340-600 on the Perth route.

-cj