South African orders 5 A330-300s

South African Airways has officially confirmed that it has negotiated an exchange contract with Airbus for their pending order of 10 A320s which has been converted to 5 A330-300s. 

The A333s will all be delivered in 2016 and shall be used to rapidly replace the oldest A343s from the fleet which currently numbers 8 units. 

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/02/safrica-idAFL5N11824H20150902 

Comments:

These A333s were bought to rapidly accelerate the cost savings strategy implemented by the carrier since JAN15 which saw BOM and PEK flights suspended to begin with.

One expects the 5 A333s are expected to be utilized in the below mentioned manner:

• 1 unit to replace daily A340 on JNB-LOS
• 1 unit to replace daily A332 on JNB-GRU there by in turn, the A332 can be used to replace the A343 on one of the two daily JNB-LHR services which would then make JNB-LHR a dedicated double daily A332 operated flight !
• 2.5 units to replace daily A346 on JNB-ACC/DKR-IAD
• 0.5 unit to replace daily A340 on JNB-LAD-JNB
• One other option also on the table can be for 1 unit to replace the A343 on the daily JNB-PER service (9 hour flight only)

Kindly note that the A333 that SAA has ordered is the A333IGW version which can fly up to 12 hours nonstop with a full payload hence it can easily perform the longest flights in the network which are JNB-LHR and ACC-IAD which are each 11 hours nonstop!