South African Airways (SAA) resumed flying on Thursday after a year and a half of paralysis following serious financial problems, which led the state in June to decide to sell a 51% stake to a private consortium.
Flights resumed with the main domestic air route, Johannesburg-Cape Town, which will have three daily frequencies.
See also: Emirates will fly to Istanbul with Airbus A380.
“We want to thank South Africans for believing in us,” the South African flag carrier’s chief pilot, Mpho Mamashela, told local broadcaster Enca shortly before SAA’s first plane took off in Johannesburg earlier in the day.
The restart, for the moment, is modest, with a fleet of only 6 aircraft, a far cry from the 46 aircraft the company operated in the past.
From the end of this month, international flights will gradually resume, linking South Africa with other strategic points on the African continent such as Accra (Ghana), Lusaka (Zambia), Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Maputo (Mozambique).
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