SAA Resumes Non-Stop Johannesburg-New York Flights

Ft. Lauderdale, FL – January 29, 2014 - South African Airways (SAA), Africa’s most awarded airline, has announced that it is resuming its popular non-stop flights between Johannesburg, South Africa, and New York – JFK International Airport.  The non-stop flight will resume on March 9^th, nearly three weeks ahead of its original schedule of March 28th.

While SAA’s New York-Johannesburg flight has continued to operate on a non-stop daily basis, the return flight has been temporarily making a 1-hr refuelling stop in Dakar, Senegal, due in part to lower travel demand during the winter months. The non-stop flight will be timed to arrive in New York in the early morning, allowing customers to quickly connect on flights to points throughout North America.

The nonstop flight schedule is as follows (all times are local):

Flight SA203 departs Johannesburg at 8:25 pm, arrives New York JFK at 6:40 am the next day

Flight SA204 departs New York JFK at 11:15 am, arrives Johannesburg at 8:00 am the next day

“We’re pleased to be able to resume the northbound non-stop flight ahead of schedule,” said Marc Cavaliere, executive vice president, North America for South African Airways. “Over the years, this service has become exceptionally popular, with our customers praising the combination of its schedule, the ease of connections both throughout the African continent and in the United States, as well as the unique South African hospitality on board.”

Customers with questions about the flight schedule or connecting flights should contact South African Airways’ North America Reservations Center at (800) 722-9675. For travel professionals, the new non-stop flight schedule is available for booking via the GDS.

About SAA

South African Airways (SAA), Africa’s most awarded airline, operates to 42 destinations worldwide, including daily nonstop flights from New York, and daily direct flights from Washington, DC (via Dakar) to Johannesburg. In its domestic market SAA has an extensive schedule operating 660 flights in total per week between Johannesburg – Cape Town, Durban, East London and Port Elizabeth, from its Johannesburg hub, as well as code-shared flights between Lanseria – Cape Town and Durban. SAA offers more frequencies than any other airline in South Africa. Regionally, SAA offers 26 destinations across the African continent including Abidjan, Accra, Blantyre, Brazzaville, Cotonou, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Douala, Entebbe, Harare, Kinshasa, Lagos, Libreville, Lilongwe, Livingstone, Luanda, Lusaka, Maputo, Mauritius, Nairobi, Ndola, Pointe Noire, Victoria Falls and Windhoek. SAA’s international network creates links to all major continents from South Africa through 11 direct routes and code shares, with daily flights from Johannesburg to London (Heathrow), Frankfurt, Munich, Mumbai, Perth, Hong Kong, Beijing, New York, Washington, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. SAA has codes share agreements with 27 other airlines across the markets it serves, including partnerships with United, US Airways, Air Canada and JetBlue in North America, which offer convenient connections from more than 30 cities to SAA’s flights. SAA’s core business is the provision of passenger airline and cargo transport services together with related services, which are provided through SAA and its four wholly owned subsidiaries: SAA Technical; Mango its low cost carrier; Air Chefs, the catering entity of SAA and South African Travel Centre (SATC). SAA is a Star Alliance member which offers more than 21,900 daily flights to 1,328 airports in 195 countries. SAA is the winner of the 'Best Airline in Africa’ Award in the regional category for eleven consecutive years. Mango and SAA hold the number one and number two successive spots as South Africa’s most on-time airlines. For more information, call 1-800-722-9675, or visit www.flysaa.com.