Capetonians may notice an extra-large aircraft flying over Table Mountain to give passengers a panoramic view of the city and its surroundings on June 28. It will be Lufthansa’s giant Airbus A380, now used by the German airline on its daily service between Johannesburg and Frankfurt.
Unfortunately, it will not be the start of a service to this city using the huge plane. Lufthansa withdraws its scheduled service to Cape Town during the winter months and is not expected to resume it until the start of our holiday season. The flight will be for guests who have attended a traditional “African christening ceremony” for the A380 to be held at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo Airport that morning. It will be Cape Town’s first glimpse of the A380 since the manufacturers flew one into our airport as part of the trials held in different parts of the world before it came into commercial service.
Since Cape Town is one of the comparatively few airports able to handle it and is the alternative destination for those coming into South Africa on days when weather prevents it from landing at OR Tambo, we may have other opportunities to see either Lufthansa’s A380 or one belonging to the two other airlines – Air France and Emirates – using it on their Johannesburg routes.
Air France, of course, was the first to do so, with Lufthansa second and Emirates will become the third in October. Let’s hope our tourism authorities’ campaign to grow the industry is so successful that the A380, which has revolutionised flying by providing more space for passengers to move around, as well as being quieter and using less fuel, is used on regular flights here.
The good news for Lufthansa passengers buying their tickets on or after June 1 is the airline has increased its free checked-in baggage allowance, particularly for those in business and first class. For economy class passengers the increase is fairly small – one item weighing 23kg (previously any number of bags but weighing a total of 20kg). But for business class passengers the weight of the free checked-in baggage has more than doubled, to two items weighing 32kg each compared with any number but weighing a total of 30kg, and for first class the allowance is three bags weighing up to 32kg each – the previous total was 40kg.
Air France’s direct flights between Paris and Cape Town are due to start on November 3, with three night flights a week in each direction using a Boeing 777-200 with 309 seats. Of these, 35 will be in the new business class, with seats converting into beds more than two metres long and 61cm wide, 24 in premium voyageur (economy plus) and 250 in economy.
The airline last flew to Cape Town about 10 years ago but the service was then by way of Johannesburg, which meant that it flew half-empty between the two airports after customs stopped an earlier practice of allowing the vacant seats to be used by local travellers.
Air France and KLM have merged successfully, although each airline has retained its individual character and at present most Capetonians fly to Paris by way of Amsterdam. KLM flies between Cape Town and Amsterdam using a Boeing 777 and a frequent shuttle service operates between Amsterdam and Paris.
Most international airlines pay a great deal of attention now to business class menus, usually designed by celebrity chefs. BA/Comair, British Airways’ franchise partner in southern Africa, has introduced a new one designed by Abubakar Bagaria, the award-winning chef with in-flight caterer Skychefs, which, according to Heidi Brauer, the airline’s group marketing executive, “breaks the perception of airline food as dull”.
According to Bagaria, new cooking techniques are used to give extra flavour to the food. - Weekend Argus