With the up upsurge in international travel, a similar growth was experienced in the domestic travel sector. No suitable aircraft in the 200 to 250 seater range was available, so a consortium of mainly European aviation manufacturers formed a consortium with a main assembly base at Toulouse, France. The product of this consortium was the Airbus A300, an aircraft with a range of 4300 km and a capacity of 263 passengers (in SAA configuration). SAA took delivery if its first A300 on 23 November 1976 and a total of nine of these aircraft were acquired in the B2K model (4), the heavier B4 model (4) and one C4 Combi aircraft, mainly for use on domestic and regional routes.
