No foreign tourist in their right minds (ie. the second time they came to South Africa) would want to go anywhere near the stinking crime-ridden overcrowded cesspit that is Johannesburg.
Durban would make a far better hub for the tourists who wanted to go to the game farms.
Cape Town is far better for the Garden Route, and for everything Cape Town and the Western Cape have to offer.
But the hub thing makes a bit of sense.
What doesn't is how SAA can't make the route pay in a brand new 330 when BA make good money using a 747 and Virgin do the same in an old, and according to SAA, gas-guzzling, 340.
If they can't make that route pay then they should just pay their 8000 employees R750k a year each to sit at home and do nothing (yes folks, that R6billion right there) and save the country the carbon footprint, and at the same time save the rest of us from having to put up with them.
In fact if they packed up, they would give the other honest airlines like 1Time and Comair the chance to do business on a level playing field, take over the SAA market share which would increase tax revenues for the government immediately.
Yes, amazingly enough.... it would pay to pack up the whole of SAA and Mango, pay the ex-employees R60k a month for ever and you still end up with a nett GAIN! Shows how dire and farcical the situation actually is.