SAA builds ‘Golden Bridge’ to China

BEIJING: They are calling SAA’s direct service to Beijing, which was inaugurated last Wednesday, ‘The Golden Bridge’. With China already SA’s largest trading partner, the relationship is about to move to a new level, SAA chairperson Cheryl Carolus said here. The new service chops the travelling time between Johannesburg and China’s capital from about 20 hours to under 15. SAA Cargo’s vice president, Tleli Makhetha, told FTW that cargo rights still had to be granted but SAA was hopeful that these would be in place within a month. SAA is aggressively marketing its service to Johannesburg as the gateway for China not only into SA, but also to the 20 destinations it serves in Africa and as the strategic hub for China into South America. The service is three times a week (days 2,4 and 6 in both directions) but SAA would like to see that increased to daily as soon as possible. The airline is using the Airbus A340-600 on the route with 42 lie-flat seats and 275 in economy. There are no plans at this stage for a Chinese carrier to operate a reciprocal service, but Star Alliance member China Air is likely to enter into a code-share deal with SAA. This will also be significant for Shanghaibound passengers in the south of China through SAA’s Hong Kong service. The Beijing service will serve the northern, western and central areas of China SA officials and SAA board members and executives were clearly delighted to have overcome the hurdles in starting what they see as a key service for the future. Minister of Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, pointed out that visitors from China to SA in the first nine months of last year had bucked worldwide trends to grow by over 18%. He was prepared to put his head on a block that with the direct service, growth in 2012 would be even higher than this. He said the new service was part of the broader co-operation between the BRICS countries. With its Sao Paulo service and Beijing services, SAA had placed Johannesburg in a key position. He said that this was the first step in the next few years would result in a massive increase in trade and tourism. International travel involving China continued to grow at an extraordinary rate. Van Schalkwyk said that China planned to build 45 new airports in the next ten years and that of the 800 million new tourists by 2014, 310 million of them would be Chinese.