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Private company

Safair

Logo: http://flysafair.co.za/, Non-free logo, via Wikipedia3

South African airline

Safair is an airline based at the O.R. Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park, South Africa. It operates one of the world's largest fleets of civil Lockheed L-100 Hercules cargo aircraft. Safair is a Level 4 BBBEE contributor.2 It is part of ASL Aviation Holdings.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1969Founded1

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Safair Boeing 737-300 Lebeda
Photo: Alan Lebeda, GFDL 1.2, via Wikimedia Commons5

Safair is an airline based at the O.R. Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park, South Africa. It operates one of the world's largest fleets of civil Lockheed L-100 Hercules cargo aircraft.2

Corporate structure

Safair is part of a group headed by ASL Aviation Holdings. 10 entities, 8 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Built from subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0); major holders from Schedules 13D and 13G. Each entity in the chart links to its source.

What it owns

What Safair reports owning in its annual reports to the SEC: buildings, land and equipment, real estate and locations, investments, intangible assets and inventory, at the end of its latest fiscal year and a year before.

Stakes and holdings (Wikidata)

Things Wikidata records the company as owning, with the share when stated.1

The story

Safair Operations as it is known today was established in 1965. At the time it was known as Tropair (Pty) Ltd and was a general aviation charter company. In 1970 the company name changed to Safair Freighters (Pty) Ltd when the company was purchased by Safmarine and the new entity began operations on 18 March 1970. Its primary client in the 1980s was the South African Defence Force.

Until 2018, Safair was contracted to the Italian Antarctic Program (National Antarctic Research Program (PNRA)) to support science over the austral summer, flying Lockheed L-100-30 missions from Christchurch, New Zealand to Zucchelli Station in Terra Nova Bay, Antarctica. In 2007, Safair obtained its IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) approval.

From Wikipedia’s article on Safair, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Products and brands

As of July 2019 the Safair fleet consists of the following aircraft:

Previously operated

ATR 72

Beechcraft 1900D

Boeing 707-320

Read the full text

Boeing 727-100

Boeing 727-200

Boeing 737-200

British Aerospace 146-100QT

British Aerospace 146-200QC

CASA CN-235

Convair 580

Lockheed L-100-20 Hercules

McDonnell Douglas MD-81

McDonnell Douglas MD-82

Partenavia P.68B

Partenavia AP.68TP-600 Viator

From Wikipedia’s article on Safair, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

Also owns

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 1969Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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