Airline «South African Skylink Airways»

«Skylink Airways» is a South African airline that owns 5 Sukhoi Superjet SJ100s and has 5 others under operating lease. The carrier expects to fill market niches not covered by South African Airways, which is in a difficult situation. These will be both domestic flights in South Africa and international flights to other African countries, for example, to Nigeria; it will be possible to fly by plane Sukhoi Superjet SJ100 to Mauritius, Reunion and Comoros. In addition, the airline will take two used Embraer 190s to fly to Saint Helena.In addition to the main offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg, Skylink Airways has opened a representative office in Moscow. In November 2021, she began training crews from South Africa in Russia. At the initial stage, the company will employ about 200 people; a training center is planned to open in South Africa.

The owner of the airline has no experience in air transportation — he previously worked in the construction and oil business, as well as organizing safari tours. He found investors from Russia and South Africa, and explains the choice of Superjet by the fact that it is a modern aircraft developed from scratch in the 21st century, which compares favorably with the designs of the sixties that have exhausted the limits of modernization. He is aware that other foreign airlines have abandoned the Superjet due to problems with spare parts and services that caused long aircraft downtime, so he immediately plans to build a spare parts warehouse and a technical center in South Africa.

The start of flights is scheduled for September 2022. Later, «South African Skylink Airways» expects to enter the long haul market and fly Airbus to Australia, Dubai, Moscow and London.