South African Airways was started as state carrier in 1934. It entered jet age in 1960's with introduction of 707's. At the same time the South African Whites Government runs a racial discrimination policy until 1994. This makes SAA banned from flying to many overseas destinaitons. This also makes SAA has to use much longer routing on international routes as many countries banned SAA aircrafts flying over their air.

This also makes SAA the largest B747SP operator in the world, because of longer routing needing aircrafts of longer range.

B747SP is a longer range, shorter special variant of B747, with range of 13000km, the longest range of aircraft before B747-400. Because of this, its tailfin is made larger to compensate for shorter distance for equal amount of moment. It has 3-class capacity of only 280, even fewer than B777-200 and A340-300. It has only 4 exits per side instead of 5 exits for other B747, and is very odd-looking because of very wide and short fuselage.

Qantas, CAAC and PamAm are other 3 customers of B747SP.

I am not sure that if SAA separates the aircraft cabin into some sections, one for the Whites, another for the Blacks.

SAA ordered some A300 & A320 in late 1980's, though it retired all Airbuses in late 1990's, making SAA a full Boeing operator again.

1994 and 2002 are the 2 most important years for SAA. The South African Whites Government is replaced by Blacks Government led by Mandela in 1994, and the racial discrimination policy is cancelled since then. This makes SAA can fly to many overseas destinations because of better politics, and shortening of existing SAA international routes.

In 2002 SAA decided to replace its all-Boeing fleet with all full-Airbus fleet by 2012, with A340 family being the only widebody aircrafts. This is the best fleet selection made by SAA ever, because A340 of quad-engined design provides excellent take off performance especially for Johannasberg of hot climate and high altitude. This also greatly increases paylond for the routes and hence lower break-even load factor for better profitability. For example, A340-600 can have cargo payload 4 times that of B777 for Johannasberg -> Hong Kong route. Only break-even load factor of 60% is needed for A340-600 flying Johannasberg -> London route with full cargo payload, but 80% needed for B777-300ER.

And the most important point is the use of A340 ensures shortest routing available due to free from ETOPS design, thus making lower cost and more attractive service to customers. For example, it takes only 12 hours from Johannasberg to Sydney for A340, but at least 20 hours for B777 because there are ETOPS no-go zone along the direct route, so it has to go to India first and then Sydney.