adminSouth African Airways has returned 17 aircraft to lessors so far.
This is because the lessors have elected to initiate the termination of the leases, the state-owned airline’s business rescue practitioners confirmed last Friday.
The aircraft returned include four A319s; three A340-300s; three A340-600s; five A330-200s and two B737s.
The airline is now left with three A319s, 10 A320s, one A330-200, five A330-300s and four A350-900s.
In the view of aviation analyst Guy Leitch, the lessors would likely rather have the assets back under their control than under the “risk”.
“It looks like SAA is struggling to match their expected new fleet requirement with their existing fleet. The A320s, which the airline is still holding on to, will likely be superfluous going forward, because it is expected that domestic and regional operations will be left for its subsidiary Mango, which operates a Boeing fleet,” says Leitch. — fin24.
Online Reporter
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