South Africa's flag carrier, South African Airways (SAA), and SunExpress, a joint venture between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, have expanded their existing cooperation. The two airlines have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support SAA's operations with four aircrafts in the 2024/2025 financial year. The MoU is an expansion of the current six-month damp lease agreement, which was started in October 2023 and include the lease of two Boeing 737-800s as well as maintenance and cockpit crew.
In addition to plans to increase the number of damp lease aircraft, South African Airways (SAA) and SunExpress are currently exploring options for a multi-year reciprocal capacity support and further cooperation with regards to maintenance, training and commercial support.
21 December 2023
South Africa: South African Airways (SAA) and SunExpress to expand partnership!
19 October 2023
South Africa: South African Airways is damp leasing two Boeing 737-800 aircraft from Sun Express!
South Africa's flag carrier, South African Airways (SAA), and Sun Express, a joint venture between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, have entered into a "damp lease" agreement that will allow SAA to operate a schedule utilising two SunExpress aircraft for a six-month period. Under the agreement, two Boeing 737-800 aircraft from Sun Express' fleet will operate flights from OR Tambo International Airport (JNB) in Johannesburg on behalf of South African Airways during the airline’s high demand period. The first aircraft will start operations in mid-October 2023 and a second aircraft will be added depending on the capacity demand by SAA.
“This unique ACMI* is a short-term tactical intervention in SAA’s fleet strategy, as we are working on the deployment of our long-term dry-leased four A320s. We are pleased with our relationship with SunExpress and are excited with its potential as we both manage the seasonality of passenger traffic in our respective geographic markets”, said John Lamola, Chief Executive of SAA.
The "damp lease" agreement between South African Airways (SAA) and Sun Express covers the provision of aircraft, maintenance, and cockpit crew, whilst the aircraft will be served by SAA’s cabin crew to maintain the airline's customer service standards. For maintenance of these aircraft, SunExpress has contracted SAA Technical (SAAT) to perform any required work, at its cost, on these aircraft whilst they are operated by South African Airways.
*ACMI stands for Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance. There are two main types of ACMI lease - wet leasing and damp leasing.
- Wet leasing - the supplying airline (the lessor) is providing Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance to a customer airline (the lessee)
- Damp leasing - the customer airline (the lessee) is providing all or part of its own cabin crew