Friday, February 19, 2010 Air France likes Jo'burg

Air France confirmed plans to deploy A380s initially on three of ten weekly services to Johannesburg, before increasing A380 frequencies to seven per week in May (and suspending the remaining three frequencies), following the delivery of a third A380.

This means two of the airline's three A380s will be serving South Africa. New York gets one and Jo'burg gets two. We will see how long this lasts after the World Cup. But certainly this move tells us something. AF must be doing a lot of business.

Lufthansa has already stated it plans to fly an A380 to South Africa as well. Lufthansa has SAA as an alliance partner. It may be that SAA and Lufthansa code share these flights. BA will also put an A380 into Jo'burg when its planes start arriving.

For us the decision at SAA to buy A380s is not hard to see coming. They could use the plane to London for sure. If traffic grows and slots cannot accommodate more service then bigger is the only solution. Though a 747i would serve SAA's needs well with lower risk, its present management is under the sway of and enamored with Toulouse. It used to be a Seattle focused place once upon a time.

In other news:

• American quietly grows JFK
  


• Lufthansa pilot strike - a self fulfilling prophesy
  


• Airport research - no surprises
  


• IATA's 2009 safety stats
  

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