Air France, which flies daily between Johannesburg and Paris, withdrew its service from Cape Town about 10 years ago because demand was not high enough. It is now considering a return, according to Ralf Karsenbarg, commercial director of the merged Air France-KLM. He explained this week that the Cape Town market has grown to such an extent that a decision is to be made whether to increase the number of KLM flights from here to Amsterdam or bring Air France back.
At the time Air France withdrew its flights from Cape Town, which were by way of Johannesburg, to refuel and take on more passengers. This meant that on the return journey the aircraft was half-empty between Johannesburg and here. Most Capetonians hate changing planes in Johannesburg and, especially, having to leave an international flight there on the way home to go through customs before catching a local flight.
So since the two airlines were successfully merged, with each retaining its individual character, most Capetonians bound for Paris have gone with KLM as far as Amsterdam from where they have caught one of the frequent shuttle flights between the two cities.
But now the market has grown sufficiently to justify non-stop flights between here and Paris.
Air France uses the giant Airbus A380 on the route from Johannesburg, where a high proportion of passengers are on business. As a result the aircraft is configured with a larger proportion of business class seats than are wanted on the Cape Town route, which has a higher proportion of leisure passengers booking economy class.
So, if it is decided to bring Air France back it will return when the airline has taken delivery of more Boeing 777s to use on the route. Meanwhile KLM, which flies here daily during the summer months, will reduce its services to five a week. But, unlike most other airlines, it will delay doing this until the first week in April instead of the end of this month because Karsenbarg has noticed our tourism season now lasts for a few more days. He explained that it is difficult to keep more flights on this route for longer because they are needed for holiday routes in the northern hemisphere.
Both KLM and Air France are growing their route networks in the second half of the year, particularly in southern Africa. Altogether they will start eight new routes in Africa, Asia and the Americas. This is part of an expansion into Africa by European and US-based airlines providing more competition for SAA and other African airlines, and there have been suggestions by some of these that it should be limited. But, on the other hand, more airlines and more flights mean more tourism and more jobs.
Meanwhile news that Air France may come here is sure to delight our tourism industry and Airports Company South Africa (Acsa). Cape Town International Airport was recently judged the best in Africa and its general manager, Deon Cloete, and our tourism minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, said they hoped more airlines would fly in. Particularly as SAA has withdrawn most of its international flights from here, with the exception of some to London, to concentrate them in Johannesburg.
Alitalia, which, like Air France-KLM, is a member of the SkyTeam Alliance of international airines, also withdrew from South Africa at a time when the rand was weak in order to use its aircraft on a more profitable route to Canada. South Africa has a large Italian community and Italian travel agents who took part in a conference in Cape Town three years ago said they were pressing for its return. Now that the successful hosting of the World Cup has given us such favourable publicity let’s hope that it, too, will consider coming back – this time to Cape Town and not only to Johannesburg.
Cathay Pacific Airways, which was hard-hit by the recession, has bounced back with record profits and is ordering more aircraft. It has responded to the tragedy in Japan by waiving rebooking and rerouting charges for all tickets issued worldwide on or before March 11 for travel involving airports in Japan or Okinawa, between March 11 and June 30. Requests for this must be submitted by March 31. Until that date, it will allow rerouting to 14 Asian cities in China, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Korea for travel from now until June 30.
Audrey.D’[email protected] - Weekend Argus