South African Airways (SA, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) will lease, not acquire, between 20 and 25 new widebody aircraft as part of its latest turnaround plan. Airline CEO Monwabisi Kalawe told African Aerospace on the sidelines of the IATA AGM in Doha that the leases will be signed by October this year.

In February, the South African national carrier was forced to retract a ZAR60billion (USD5.8billion) Request For Proposals (RFP) for 23 new long-haul aircraft by then Minister for Public Enterprises, Malusi Gigaba, on the grounds that the tender did not conform to crucial localisation elements of government policy.

However, Kalawe says the tender has now been reworked to government satisfaction with an anticipated arrival date of the first aircraft set to be either 2017 or 2018.

On the carrier's departure from plans to acquire, as opposed to leasing, the jets, Kalawe said SAA's weak balance sheet would not allow for capital acquisitions.

While no specific types were mentioned, SAA has in the past studied the A350 from Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) and the B787 programme from Boeing (BOE, Washington National) as potential choices. The airline, in part, blamed the poor fuel efficiency of its ageing longhaul fleet of eighteen A340s for its latest ZAR0.991billion (USD88.12million) operating loss.