SAA considers Senegal offer in expansion race

Johannesburg - SAA is in talks to buy a stake in Senegal Airlines as the continent’s biggest carrier seeks to counter expansion strategies at competitors Ethiopian Airlines Enterprise and Kenya Airways. Senegal received bids for the purchase of 30 percent of its national carrier from firms including SAA, said Finance Minister Amadou Ba. SAA said it was mulling a transaction. Africa’s three leading airlines have begun a contest to tap traffic beyond their home markets as the International Air Transport Association forecasts the region’s carriers will earn money this year for the first time since 2010. Ethiopian Air, the African second-largest, added a hub in Togo, west Africa in 2008, and was due to open another in Malawi yesterday. “We’ve received offers,” Ba said, adding that Air France-KLM Group, a 27 percent shareholder in Kenya Airways, Africa’s third-largest, is “not excluded” from talks. “We have been approached by the Senegalese authorities and they presented an offer to us for our consideration,” SAA spokesman Tlali Tlali said. – Bloomberg