Cape Town - Although SAA has been enlarging its African route network, I gather it will not persist in serving some of its new destinations on the continent for political reasons and if they prove unprofitable. If it withdraws from some of these, I think it unlikely that it will resume its non-stop service between Cape Town and London’s Heathrow, although the need to use its aircraft more profitably has been given as one of its reasons for diverting them to African destinations.
Apart from anything else, it has lost the scarce and highly sought-after arrival and departure slots at Heathrow that were used for the Cape Town-London service and, even if more become available, it would have to pay a high price to acquire them. However, it might consider flying to another airport in the UK – to Gatwick in London or to one of the large provincial cities.
One of the reasons Emirates flies to several large British cities is that not everyone wants to go to London, and there is a high demand from business travellers and British people visiting friends and relatives to go straight to their ultimate destination.
Dutch airline KLM realised this years before Emirates existed, and at one time advertised itself in South Africa as “Scotland’s national airline” because so many Scots avoided going to London by taking a short flight across the North Sea to catch a connecting flight from Amsterdam.
However, the British government has also harmed its tourism industry and airlines by raising its high arrival and departures tax for airline passengers – already the highest in the world – from the beginning of this month.
The tax rises with the distance flown and this is encouraging some canny travellers to fly with a Far Eastern airline and pay the tax only on the distance flown from the United Arab Emirates or Qatar or – if they have EU passports – with a continental airline and catch a connecting flight from Western Europe or avoid the tax altogether by arriving in Britain by train or ferry.
Seasonal
German airline Lufthansa’s decision to change the route of its seasonal flight to Cape Town this summer, so that it starts from Munich instead of Frankfurt, has proved a success, according to Jens Bischof, a vice-president of the airline.
He said the change, made as a result of a ban on late-night flights from Frankfurt, had attracted more incoming passengers to Cape Town and would be repeated next year.
Munich Airport had a large catchment area and offered connecting flights to even more destinations, particularly in Eastern Europe, than Frankfurt.
Lufthansa subsidiary Edelweiss, specialising in tourist travel, will continue its seasonal flights between Cape Town and Zurich until next month and return next year.
Among other destinations, it will offer connecting flights by way of Zurich to Tampa Bay in Florida. Its other destinations during our summer season include include Varadero-Cancun and Punta Cana. Edelweiss is moving its international call centre from Zurich to Cape Town this month.
Alternative
Kenya Airways, which flies to Joburg, has increased its service between its home airport of Nairobi and the Chinese city of Guangzhou by way of Bangkok from four flights a week to daily, providing an alternative route for business people and tourists. - Weekend Argus