outh African Airways has gotten a fair amount of attention here at TPG. Through our involvement in PeaceJam, we’ve attended the annual PeaceJam conferences in both South Africa and Ghana, among others. A few years ago, TPG flew SAA’s A340-600 on its daily nonstop flight between New York-JFK and Johannesburg in order to get to the conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

The carrier only flies to one other US city — Washington, DC — where it operates flights between Washington Dulles and Johannesburg via Accra, Ghana and Dakar, Senegal, depending on the day of the week. But SAA sells tickets on both fifth-freedom routes between IAD and ACC and DSS, making for a convenient option for travelers headed to West Africa.

For this year’s conference in Accra I had the opportunity to fly one of these fifth-freedom routes on board the A330-300, which was equipped with an entirely new hard product up front. Based on our first look at these new seats, I was prepared for an experience unlike any of TPG‘s past experiences. And reflecting back on the flight, my expectations were happily exceeded. Continue reading …