SAA to order up to 35 airliners

London - South African Airways plans to place an order for 25 to 35 wide-body airliners within 90 days as the carrier looks to replace its aging fleet with more efficient aircraft.

The airline is considering both the Boeing Co. 787 and the Airbus SAS A350, Deputy Chief Executive Officer Nico Bezuidenhout said today in an interview in Cape Town.

The new jets will be phased in starting in 2017, the executive said.

“For everyone advantage that you can name on the one manufacturer you can name a counter advantage on the other,” Bezuidenhout said at the annual general meeting of the IATA industry body.

“It’s kind of like airline food in a sense: everything tastes like chicken eventually.”

Monwabisi Kalawe took over as chief executive officer of Africa’s biggest airline on June 1 with the task of returning the carrier to profit.

Johannesburg-based SAA had a loss of 1.36 billion rand ($140 million) for the year ending March 2012 and has faced management upheaval, as well as calls by the nation’s opposition party for a sale.

A turnaround has been submitted and is being considered by the government.

“The crucial thing is to turn the finances of the airline around and ensure we bring it back to sustainability and viability over the next year or two,” said Malusi Gigaba, South Africa’s Minister of Public Enterprises.

A sale of the carrier is not under consideration by the government, he said.

SAA has arranged funding for the first ten of the next twenty A320 deliveries on a sale-and-lease-back basis, Bezuidenhout said.

Future orders may be financed with shareholder or public debt market funding, he said.

The mid-sized Airbus A350 variant sells for about $288 million at list price, compared with $243.5 million for the 787-9.

Companies typically get discounts on large deals. - Bloomberg News