South African Airways retires its last A340-200 from active service ch-aviation PRO exclusive

South African Airways (SA, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) has agreed to pay rival carrier Comair (South Africa) (MN, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) ZAR1.1 billion rand (USD78 million) to settle a longrunning anti-competition case.

The case pertained to SAA's system of "override incentive schemes" wherein between April 2000 and May 2001 as well as between June 2001 and March 2005, travel agents were paid "considerable sums of money" to book passengers on SAA rather than on rival airlines such as Comair and the defunct Nationwide. This, a South Gauteng high court agreed, had led to substantial foreclosure of rivals in South Africa's scheduled domestic air services market, causing Nationwide Airlines and Comair to suffer loss of profit.

Defunct Nationwide had been awarded ZAR104.6 million in damages plus interest in August 2016 for similar claims against SAA spanning the period June 2001 to March 2005 while Comair was itself awarded over ZAR1.1 billion in damages plus interest.

In March 2017, SAA appealed the Comair ruling to the South African Supreme Court of Appeal (SASCA).

However,...

Kenya Airways (KQ, Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta) is evaluating its future in Skyteam and might choose to leave the alliance and more actively engage in joint-ventures, CEO Sebastian Mikosz told Air Transport World.

"We don't have to be in Skyteam to have JVs and our shareholder structure would not change when we leave. The question for us is to stay or leave the alliance," Mikosz said.

He added that joint ventures made more sense to the airline as they entail a much closer business partnership and preclude competition between the partner airlines. In turn, some airlines who are members of the same alliance are also competitors.

Mikosz also pointed out that alliances do not even impose an obligatory code-share on its members. As such, while passengers enjoy benefits such as shared frequent flyer benefits, from the business point of view joint ventures are preferable.

The Kenyan carrier will not seek to join another alliance if it chooses to leave Skyteam.

Currently, Kenya Airways has an existing joint venture with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines...

Having completed the revamping of Air Tanzania's passenger fleet with Dash 8-400s, A220-300s, and B787-8s, the Tanzanian Government is now considering acquiring dedicated freighters for the airline.

According to The Daily News, the Minister for Works, Transport and Communications, Isack Kamwelwe, said during a recent tour of a fish processing facility along the shores of Lake Victoria that government intends to introduce at least two freighters to help bolster exports - that of fresh produce in particular.

“We have now decided to utilise fully the services of our vibrant Air Tanzania Corporation and in the same spirit, we want to handle all cargoes right from Mwanza and uplift them directly to the markets,” he said.

“We are going to involve the private partners in securing investors in the cargo business and I would like to challenge the business partners to take full advantages of ATCL services instead of going for expensive alternative routes. I’m glad that five fish processing industries have agreed to use ATCL in exporting their products."

Though it...