How SAA came to resume its flights to São Paulo — and what that means

• Published date: 31 October 2023
• Publication title: Business Day (Johannesburg, South Africa)

The flights resume almost exactly a year since the re-election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president of Brazil, making it the perfect time to reflect, among other matters, on Lula’s first year back in office. For Africa, his presidency has been good news. He visited the continent twice in 2023, including SA at the end of August, clearly showing how much he values Africa as a business partner. It is therefore fitting that SAA’s first intercontinental flights are to Brazil

Lula beat previous president Jair Bolsonaro by a thin margin and he governs a country that remains divided, notwithstanding a marked improvement in living standards for poor and middle-class Brazilians. Many supporters of Lula and Bolsonaro still don’t see eye to eye, but the animosity has subsided considerably.

I visited Brazil in February for the first time since September 2019 (when Bolsonaro was still president) and found the country to be far more relaxed. I heard anecdotally that supporters from either side now even date each other again, something that was unthinkable during the Bolsonaro years. And that can only be positive for everyone concerned.

No matter who was president, the demand for flights between SA and Brazil never diminished, especially after the worst of the pandemic was behind us. In the absence of direct flights, anyone who wanted to go to Brazil had no choice but to take long detours via Dubai, Addis Ababa, Luanda or Istanbul, at exorbitant fares. For most people that was impossible.

Brazilians and South Africans depended on SAA’s relatively cheap direct flights to Brazil to maintain family and business links. I felt this personally and professionally. During the now close to four years without direct flights, my Brazilian wife did not see her family and lost her eldest sister, while her elderly mother is holding on to dear life waiting for our visit in December. Many Brazilians here have similar stories.

With this in mind, in 2022 some pilot friends and I tried to charter SAA’s lone Airbus A340 for a weekly flight to Brazil. We approached financial experts, several service providers in SA and Brazil, the Brazilian embassy’s chef to cater for the flight, and even a Stellenbosch winery to sponsor wines. We presented this business plan to SAA, showing that even at half the other airlines to São Paulo we could still turn a profit.

They were immediately on board, presenting an attractive rate to rent us their aircraft. This plan created quite a buzz in the...