Emirates and South African Airways relaunch partnership to promote connectivity and expand options for African customers – Dubai Blog

As South African Airways (SAA) resumes operations, Emirates has been working closely with South African Airways to relaunch its long-term partnership, which aims to improve the customer experience and provide more value to passengers travelling on both airlines. This move will also help to consolidate South African Airways’ position and status, and will build momentum when the airline initially restarts flights to six African destinations.

Emirates and South African Airways have been committed to improving the consistency between products and services, and reactivating the synergies between loyalty programs, and will begin with mutually beneficial commercial arrangements. The agreement includes the SAA code between South Africa and Dubai and Emirates-operated routes on a single ticket, enabling passengers to seamlessly check their luggage to their final destination from October 1. Emirates will also place the SAA code on the main trunk route between South Africa and Dubai.

Adnan Kazim, Chief Commercial Officer of Emirates Airline comments on the revival of partnership: “The cooperation between Emirates and South African Airways is based on our shared commitment to provide customers with more flight schedule options and more connectivity in Africa through our growing network. We value our relationship with South African Airways. With nearly 25 years of successful partnership, we are working hard to take more active steps to continue to develop our relationship and provide our customers with more connections in the future.”

SAA interim CEO Thomas Kgokolo said: “As SAA begins to rebuild, the long-term partnership with Emirates is both important and vital to our future growth plans. “We have the same vision, namely, seamless, efficient and excellent customer service, as well as connection with multiple destinations. We believe that this partnership will bring more routes and destination choices, especially throughout the entire Africa, because we all recognize the economic, trade and tourism potential of the African continent and our key role as a facilitator.”

The initiative to relaunch the partnership also supports the recovery of South Africa’s tourism industry by facilitating increased connectivity for international tourists in and out of the country.

In the next few months, as South African Airways expands its business, it is planning to expand cooperation and further consolidate partnerships in more domestic and regional locations in Africa, and Emirates will also add more options to South African Airways customers To connect to selected destinations within its network in one trip.

The Emirates SAA partnership began in 1997. Over the past ten years, more than 1 million passengers have flown through the combined network of the two airlines, which has expanded to 110 destinations before the pandemic.

With the resumption of the South African Airways partnership, Emirates’ footprint in South Africa and Southern Africa provides customers across the African continent with more choices.