While British Airways is increasing capacity and frequencies on its lucrative route from London to Johannesburg, South African Airways has announced this week that it is trimming capacity to Heathrow.
From 28 March SAA will be replacing the A340-600 currently used on the route with an Airbus A330-200. As the A330-200 is smaller than the A340-600, it will result in a decrease in the seats available on the route.
The new aircraft will operate on SA235 at 7pm, the first of SAA’s two daily departures, as well as selected SA237 flights that depart at 9pm.
The move follows SAA’s controversial cancelling of its Cape Town-London route in 2013, and the selling off of a valuable morning landing slot at London Heathrow.
According to Tourism Update, SAA spokesperson Tlali Tlali said the decision was made "so that we are able to meet the expectations of our passengers". The airline has admitted that all its international routes are loss making.
In contrast, British Airways has recently expanded its offering to Johannesburg, with the introduction of A380 services to Johannesburg. It will also increase the daily flights to Cape Town during the winter, adding three additional flights per week to meet demand.
Last night, BA carried 1463 passengers out of a capacity of 1478 on its 4 flights ex CPT and JNB to LHR. (PLF 99%)
Last night, SA, carried 436 passengers out of a capacity of 539 on its 2 flights JNB to LHR. (PLF 81%)
Those figures are fairly typical of loads on the routes over the last few months, in both directions. I have seen far lower loads on SAA than the above. Whilst a high PLF is not necessarily an indicator of high yield, it does tell something, specially when we know by their own admission that SAA lose money on the London whilst BA have often said it is a highly profitable route.
Both airlines faces the same problem at opposite ends of the route, the aircraft sit for roughly 12 hours unused. BA has better connecting traffic options to and from LHR, other than that they compete on fairly equal terms.
SAA is run by ANC politicians for the benefit of their own kind. Snouts in the trough and all that, whereas BA is run by professionals.
(Figures approximate, and I could roughly estimate the yields but don't have time or energy to do so.)