South African Airways

South African Airways – SAA for short – was for decades one of the great long-haul airlines of the Southern Hemisphere: Boeing 747s in many variants, a worldwide network, the famous springbok logo. Then came the deep fall: restructuring proceedings, a flight pause, a restart with a handful of aircraft. Today SAA is a smaller, all-Airbus airline – and still exciting for spotters, not least because of the four-engine A340-300. This page shows you the history, codes, fleet and the features by which you can reliably recognize SAA.

South African Airways at a glance

South African Airways is South Africa’s state-owned flag carrier. Its headquarters is Airways Park, right at O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, which is also the airline’s hub. Cape Town serves as a second base. The roots go back to 1929, when the private Union Airways was founded. On February 1, 1934, the state took over the company along with its staff and aircraft – including Junkers F.13s – and renamed it South African Airways. In Afrikaans, the airline was long also called Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens, SAL for short.

Since April 2006, SAA has belonged to Star Alliance – as the first African airline ever. That makes it a partner of companies such as Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines. How the three big alliances work is explained in the overview Star Alliance, oneworld and SkyTeam.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code SA: appears in the flight number, so on departure boards, tickets and in schedules.
• ICAO code SAA: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on flight trackers.
• Callsign SPRINGBOK: how the crew identifies itself on the radio. The name recalls the springbok logo that adorned the tail from 1934 to 1997.

The registration prefix ZS- stands for South Africa. It is the same for all South African airlines, so also for Airlink and FlySafair. How registrations are structured in general is covered in the article Understanding aircraft registrations.

History: from the springbok to the flag

The early decades

After the 1934 takeover, SAA first expanded the domestic network. In the same year, three Junkers Ju 52/3m arrived, flying between Durban and Johannesburg, among other routes. On November 10, 1945, the first intercontinental service started: the “Springbok Service” to England, flown with an Avro York and taking about three days. In the following years, Douglas DC-3s and DC-4s, Lockheed Constellations and Vickers Viscounts flew for the airline.

Jet age and isolation

In 1960, the Boeing 707-320 brought the first jet, which stayed in service for around 20 years. From the 1970s, the Boeing 747 defined the airline’s image – in almost all variants: 747-200B, 747-200M Combi, 747-300, 747-400 and the shortened Boeing 747SP. When the first 747SP was delivered in March 1976, SAA flew nonstop from Everett near Seattle to Cape Town – a distance record for commercial aircraft that stood until 1989.

The record chase also had political reasons. Because of apartheid, most African states closed their airspace to South African airlines. SAA had to fly a wide detour around Africa’s west coast, often with a stopover on the Cape Verde island of Sal – a detour of almost 3,000 kilometers. In 1986, the USA banned flights by South African airlines, and a year later the connections to Australia ended too.

Helderberg disaster in 1987

The airline’s worst disaster occurred on November 28, 1987: the Boeing 747-200M Combi ZS-SAS “Helderberg” crashed into the Indian Ocean after a fire in the cargo hold on its way from Taipei via Mauritius to Johannesburg. All 159 people on board died. The exact cause of the fire has still not been conclusively determined.

Opening up and new colors

With the end of apartheid, the world opened up to SAA again. From 1991, the airline flew to New York again, and the network grew in Africa and Asia. In 1997, the springbok and the old colors of orange, white and blue disappeared: since then, the tail shows a design based on the new national flag. A 747-300 even received a brightly colored special livery at the time as a symbol of the “Rainbow Nation”. Such historical color schemes are popular subjects today – more on this in the article on retro liveries.

From 2002, SAA took on the Airbus A340-600, which was part of the fleet until 2021. The last Boeing 747-400s left the airline in 2010.

Business rescue, flight pause and restart

Behind the long history stands an equally long crisis. According to reports, SAA received state aid on the order of around 50 billion rand between 2004 and 2020 – without ever becoming permanently profitable.

In the middle of the crisis, SAA parted with large parts of its fleet. Especially bitter for spotters: the four leased Airbus A350-900s, which only arrived from February 2020, went back to the lessors the same year; two of them were then taken over by Air Mauritius. The low-cost subsidiary Mango also ceased operations in July 2021.

The planned partial privatization did not materialize: after almost three years of negotiations, the government called off the Takatso deal, and SAA is fully state-owned again. Financially, the airline reported profits again for the fiscal years 2024 and 2025, around 155 million rand for 2025. South African media, however, partly questioned these figures. There were changes at the top again in 2026: CEO John Lamola resigned in April, and interim chiefs have led the airline since.

The fleet: a small Airbus family

Since the restart, SAA has flown exclusively Airbus. According to fleet overviews, the fleet looked like this in spring 2026:

Type	Number (as of spring 2026)	Seats	Use	Spotter tip
Airbus A320-200	15	138 (24 business, 114 economy), configuration may vary by aircraft	Domestic and regional routes in Africa	Workhorse of the fleet, first-generation A320
Airbus A330-300	2	249 (46 business, 203 economy)	Long-haul	Twinjet, long fuselage
Airbus A340-300	2	253 (38 business, 215 economy)	Long-haul	Four engines, a type that has become rare

The airline announced plans to grow the fleet to 21 aircraft. Because leased aircraft come and go, the numbers fluctuate – take the table as a guide, not as an exact snapshot for October 2026.

The Airbus A320 at SAA belongs to the first generation with smaller engines. How to tell it from the neo is shown in the article A320neo or ceo?. On long-haul, the A340-300 is the highlight: four-engine Airbus jets have become rare in scheduled service worldwide. The A330-300 looks very similar on the outside – apart from the number of engines. The manufacturer of all three types is Airbus.

A330-300 or A340-300? How to tell them apart

Both types come from the same development program and share fuselage, wing and cockpit. Because SAA operates both types, it is good practice for a quick glance.

From the side, the number of engines is usually enough. If the aircraft is facing you head-on, the center landing gear helps. The guide A330 or A340? explains it in detail with all variants.

How to recognize South African Airways

The most important feature is the tail in the design of the South African national flag, which SAA has worn since 1997. On the tail you will find the registration with ZS-. Because the fleet today consists only of Airbuses, you can practically rule out a Boeing in SAA livery in current pictures – it then dates from an earlier era.

A detail for alliance fans: when joining Star Alliance in 2006, two SAA aircraft received the uniform alliance livery. Such alliance colors are among the subjects that many spotters deliberately collect – more on this in the article on alliance liveries.

Network and partners

After the restart, SAA concentrates on domestic routes, above all Johannesburg–Cape Town, and on destinations in southern, western and central Africa. On intercontinental routes, the airline most recently flew mainly to São Paulo (again since October 2023) and to Perth (again since April 2024, five times a week from January 2025). Former long-haul destinations such as New York, London, Frankfurt and Munich no longer appear on the schedule, to our knowledge (October 2026).

There are also codeshare partners, including Turkish Airlines, Kenya Airways and Brazil’s GOL. On the African continent, SAA competes with large network airlines such as Ethiopian Airlines, and at home with Airlink and FlySafair. The frequent flyer program is called Voyager.

Spotting South African Airways

If you want to photograph SAA, you can hardly avoid a trip to South Africa. The most important place is the Johannesburg O. R. Tambo hub: most of the fleet takes off and lands here, plus plenty of traffic from other African and international airlines. Which spots there are here and in Cape Town and what to look out for on site is covered in the guide Plane spotting in South Africa.

A few points help with planning:

• Light: in the Southern Hemisphere, the sun is in the north at midday. Plan your position so that you are not shooting into the sun.
• Altitude: Johannesburg lies at around 1,700 meters. Aircraft need longer takeoff runs there, and the air is often very clear – good conditions for sharp pictures.
• Rare types first: with only a few long-haul aircraft, it is worth specifically timing the A340-300 with the tracker.
• Check the schedule: SAA’s schedule has changed several times since 2021. Don’t rely on old trip reports.

Common mix-ups

• Confusing SAA with Airlink – both come from South Africa and wear ZS-; the tail and ICAO code tell them apart.
• Logging the A340-300 as an A330-300 – count the engines, SAA flies both types.
• Misplacing old photos – the springbok logo and orange-blue date from the time until 1997; the Boeing 747 and A340-600 are history at SAA.
• Reading the IATA code SA as “South America” – SA simply stands for South African Airways.
• Listing Mango as an active airline – the low-cost subsidiary has not flown since July 2021.
• Expecting SAA in Frankfurt – after the restart, Germany is currently not in the network.

Conclusion

South African Airways has almost a century of aviation history behind it: from the springbok through record flights with the 747SP to the plunge into business rescue. Today the flag carrier flies on a much smaller scale but regularly again – with an all-Airbus fleet in which the A340-300 is a real treat. If you want to collect SAA, you are best off planning a tour to Johannesburg and logging registration and type cleanly.