Originally Posted by
flybywire44
This news article was posted in December, 2012. Something is missing in this article. Can we assume that Star Alliance passengers will make a connection in either Europe or London before reaching South Africa? Charlotte/Philadelphia do not have the runway for an African route. US Airways does not yet have the aircraft for an African mission.
Neither airline since this article was posted has since announced service to either's hub. The only destinations they share are Lisbun, Frankfurt, Zurich and Munich.
SAA Route Mapper
JFK, IAD, and LHR are also shared US/SA markets.
Codeshare deals among alliance members (and outside of them) are pretty common these days. This agreement may expire with the US/AA merger and the move to Oneworld, or Oneworld may have designs on poaching SAA from Star. Who knows. I definitely wouldn't read a lot in to this, though. And as a US employee, Africa is NOT on the company's radar at this time. I don't think the A330 has the legs for it, so it would have to wait on the A350, and I think other markets (Asia, for instance) are a lot higher on the priority list.