Emirates Airline is growing its flights offering to South Africa with plans to add more frequencies on routes to the country’s three main gateways.
From March 1, 2023, the gulf airline will increase its service to and from Johannesburg to three daily flights. Cape Town will be served with two daily flights from 1 February 2023 – bringing its service to Cape Town back to 2019 levels – while two more flights will be added to Durban, offering daily service from 1 December 2022.
The carrier is already serving Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg from its Dubai base, but said that rising demand has led it to expand capacity to South Africa.
The increase in flights “is part of the airline’s ongoing commitment to support South Africa’s economic and tourism recovery through enhanced connectivity across all of its gateways,” Emirates said in a statement. “The airline’s latest move also reaffirms South Africa’s strategic importance [to Emirates’] network as it prioritizes service expansion and rebuilding its capacity to unlock further growth potential.”
Earlier this year, Emirates and the South African Tourism Board signed a memorandum of understanding “to jointly promote tourism” to South Africa, which is seeking to take advantage of the potential passenger feed from Emirates’ extensive global network.
Emirates noted that the added flights “will collectively provide more cargo belly-hold capacity to further scale up import and export opportunities for local businesses, helping carry vital exports including seafood, fruits and vegetables, fresh and frozen meats, wine, pharmaceuticals, and gold—between the UAE, South Africa and beyond.”
The airline will operate 42 weekly flights to South Africa when the new frequencies are added.
Featured image: @aviator_nic/Airspace Africa
