South African Airways is expected to restart operations to Sao Paulo and Perth, Australia by March 31 and key European and US cities later this year.

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South African Airways interim chief commercial officer, Tebogo Tsimane told a Travel News Weekly webcast this week that the state-owned airline plans to use Airbus A330s to launch two long-haul routes to Sao Paulo by the end of the current financial year ending March 31, 2023.

However, as yet, the flight details are not loaded into the airline’s reservation systems.

The airline went into bankruptcy during COVID and has slowly been restarting services.

South African Airways also plans to resume flights to Frankfurt, London, Washington and New York with Airbus A350s this year. Mr Tsimane said that "the routes that we've picked for this year are the routes that will be easier and quicker for us to start.”

SAA resumed flights in September 2021, after a US$570 million bailout.

But it was left with a small fleet of just six aircraft. Since then, the fleet has grown to 9 aircraft - a long way from its pre-COVID fleet of 44 aircraft.

It is expected the fleet will grow to over 12 by year's end.

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