AIRLINES – including
SAA – pinpointed in
recent articles as being
in talks to form an African
airline alliance, say they were
surprised to see reports as no
discussions between carriers
had taken place.
In December, media reports
claimed that Air Mauritius,
Kenya Airways and RwandAir
were in talks with SAA to
launch an alliance before
March this year that would
“break the stranglehold of
Ethiopian Airlines and achieve
much-needed economies of
scale”.
SAA spokesperson Tlali Tlali
told TNW that if this alliance
was in the making, SAA was
not part of it. “We’ve not had
any discussions with anyone
about it. We are focusing
on existing commercial
agreements and exploring ways
to enhance and extract more
value from them.”
Kenya Airways head of
Corporate Communications,
Evelyn Mwangi, says: “Kenya
Airways values all intra-African
co-operation with other players
but we are surprised to read
this article as there are no
ongoing discussions about any
form of African alliance.”
Moreover, Evelyn said Kenya
Airways would not create
alliances to counter any airline
but rather to create commercial
partnerships to enhance
benefits of connectivity for
customers.
While there were no talks
on joint ventures with the
airlines mentioned, she did
not exclude any potential to
open discussions in the future.
Kenya Airways has codeshare
agreements with ten African
airlines, including Air Mauritius,
she says.
Thendela Dladla, regional
manager for South Africa,
Namibia, Mozambique,
Mauritius, Australia and New
Zealand of RwandAir, told TNW
that, as far as he was aware,
RwandAir was not participating
in any talks regarding a new
airline alliance.
SAA confirmed it had 24
commercial agreements with
various airlines across the
world that were presently under
review to enhance the bilateral
agreements and extract more
value from those agreements
that presented such potential
and opportunities. “Once
our discussions with any of
these partners, including
Air Mauritius, have been
concluded, announcements
will be made in the same way
as we did when we announced
our enhanced relationship with
Emirates,” Tlali said.
Air Mauritius was unavailable
for comment at the time of
going to print.
