After the resumption of its scheduled passenger flights to South Africa which were suspended in January, one of the largest foreign carriers operating in South Africa, Emirates is set to focus on cargo, hoping to revive business operations and offset the passenger traffic downturn in the country.
Suspension of the airline’s operations beginning of the year, has given it a chance to re-strategise and find ways of maximising profits and at the same time providing an opportunity to reconsider its operations in South Africa, the Gulf airline’s Regional Manager, Afzal Parambil has explained.
He highlighted that cargo played a pivotal role as the backbone of Emirates’ operations to South Africa during these unprecedented times posed by the global Covid-19 pandemic.
When passenger flights were suspended, Emirates did not suspend cargo operations to and from South Africa.
“With the help of cargo operations, we are quite confident that we will rebuild our market in SA. Among other things, we foresee an even further increase in demand for cargo.
“We realised that, during the pandemic, it is not only about refunds for customers, but they also want alternative options to still be able to travel. Therefore, flexibility is important – allowing changes, including of destination, without additional charges. This builds trust with consumers.”
Pertaining travellers market in South Africa, Afzal explained that Emirates was optimistic about the outlook for South Africa’s travel market.
As more countries, he said, start to open up their borders for travel to and from SA and adjust their protocol requirements, demand will increase.
“That is why we decided to increase our capacity to SA as from 1 September with double daily flights to Johannesburg – one of which will connect to Durban – and five flights a week to Cape Town,” said Parambil.
He indicated that currently, the demand does not quite merit so many flights, Emirates is geared to work tirelessly and ensure that passengers can have easy onward connections.
“For instance, Dubai is not yet open for leisure passengers from SA. Before the pandemic it was one of the top destinations for SA travellers and we hope soon it can become so again. We want to, however, be ready for when higher demand returns. The airline also foresees that when the UK removes South Africa from its so-called “red list”, demand will increase a lot.”
Emirates works closely with the board of SA Tourism to encourage people on the airline’s network looking for new destinations to come and spend a holiday in South Africa and Parambil said this will enable Emirates to build its inbound traffic to be more in balance with the higher outbound traffic.
Permission for Emirates to resume its operations as from August 6 was granted by the United Arab Emirates government when the number of Covid-19 cases in SA started dropping and the vaccination rollout increased.
By Joyce Mukucha
