Cape Town can expect a number of new airlines to fly into the city in coming months, said Alan Winde, Westerm Cape minister for Economic Affairs and Tourism, and Peter Bacon, chairman of regional tourism authority Cape Town Routes Unlimited, this week. As I mentioned last week Deon Cloete, general manager of Cape Town International Airport, said a number of airlines were making inquiries about coming here but he would not name them at that stage. Winde said at a conference this week that Swiss-based Edelweiss Airlines planned to fly between here and Zurich and Turkish Airlines planned to put on an additional flight between here and Istanbul every week.
But, pointing out that some West African countries have grown prosperous, with higher growth rates than India, he said that although there were flights connecting them with Johannesburg, Cape Town still needed direct connections with them. Low-cost airlines kulula and 1Time are trying to obtain air traffic rights to fly to more African countries. Let’s hope that they get them and that some of their new routes are to Cape Town and not only to Johannesburg. Mozambican travel agents who welcomed the start of 1Time’s service between Johannesburg and Maputo late last year said they would like flights to this city too. 1Time had expected the service to be used mostly by South Africans flying to Maputo but, in fact, it has found strong demand from Mozambican business and leisure travellers as well.
In addition to these international flights Velvet Sky, the new low-cost airline launched last week, is attracting heavy passenger loads on its new service between Cape Town and Johannesburg. So far it has one return flight a day, using a leased Boeing 737 aircraft with 148 seats and has been offering low introductory fares until this month. Gary Webb, its chief operating officer, said it would introduce flights between Cape Town and its home airport of Durban in June.
Qatar Airways, which was the first of the three Middle Eastern airlines to fly into Cape Town, is celebrating the launch of its 100th destination this month with special offers and promotions. The 100th destination, due to be launched on April 6, is between Qatar and Aleppo. What it describes as “a fabulous global offer” is due to be announced – only on its website, qatarairways.com – before the launch. It is in addition to other promotions and passengers can already sign up for it with a chance to win two free tickets to one of over 100 destinations.
In addition to this, members of the frequent flyer club are being awarded additional bonus miles. The airline’s holiday division is introducing a stop-over in Doha, its home base, at attractive rates, on the way to other destinations. Further promotions are due to be announced in coming weeks.
More new routes will be launched in June when the airline will introduce flights to Shiraz, its third destination in Iran, followed by Venice, its third destination in Italy, and Montreal, its first destination in Canada. In July the new route will be to the Indian city of Kolkata, in September it will be to the Bulgarian capital of Sofia and in October to the Nowegian capital of Oslo.
Less happily, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) reports that the troubles in North Africa and the Middle East have caused airline revenues from passengers in Africa to fall by 13.1 percent between January and February at a time when seat capacity grew by seven percent. Giuseppe Bisignani, director general and CEO of IATA, described this and the earthquake and its aftermath in Japan as “a series of shocks denting the industry’s recovery from the recession”.
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