The South African Post Office’s (Sapo) joint Business Rescue Practitioners (BRPs) have signed a contract with Ethiopian Airlines to provide airmail services to additional international destinations.
BRP’s Anoosh Rooplal and Juanito Damons announced on Friday that they had signed the contract to start a “new partnership” for international services.
This follows Sapo’s partnership with Swiss Air and the consequent reinstatement of its international mail service to Europe and Japan in October 2023.
Sapo said in a statement that its latest partnership would enable it to deliver and receive airmail from China. Ethiopian Air will deliver the mail four times a week to its hub in Addis Ababa from where it will be transported to African destinations. All African countries are included in the new service except for those that share a border with South Africa - those will continue to receive mail deliveries by road.
Anoosh Rooplal said that “with the new partnership, we intend to clear all the backlog mail to China and the respective African countries during February”.
Outgoing international airmail services, which include expedited mail service, airmail parcels and airmail registers, can be tracked via the Post Office website.
Airmail destined for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands was cleared in December 2023, through Qantas Airways, with which Sapo has a month-to-month contract. Sapo also uses Qantas Airways to clear airmail to Southeast Asian countries.
“We are working to partner with an additional airline to handle the North America airmail demand. In the meantime, Ethiopian Airlines and Swiss Air will service this route, albeit with limited capacity,” Rooplal said.
