Chronicle Editor
Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
SOUTH Africa’s low-cost airline, FlySafair, has announced plans to launch direct flights to Bulawayo and Victoria Falls from Cape Town and Johannesburg as Zimbabwe’s tourism continues to attract more airlines.
FlySafair will be the third South African airline to fly direct flights into Zimbabwe after South African Airways and Airlink.
In a statement, FlySafair said it had received approval to operate flights to 11 new destinations within the Southern African region, following a meeting of the Air Services Licensing Council of South Africa (ASLC).
Among the 11 destinations, Victoria Falls and Bulawayo are included. Plans are also underway to introduce flights to Harare.
“The ASLC has approved FlySafair’s application to operate flights from Cape Town and Johannesburg to Gaborone, Livingstone, Luanda, Lusaka, Maputo and Victoria Falls. In addition, the airline has been approved for frequencies from Johannesburg to Bulawayo, Nairobi and the Seychelles, as well as between Cape Town and Windhoek,” said the airline.
Its application for routes between Johannesburg and Harare, Windhoek and Zanzibar and additional frequencies to Mauritius are still pending, the airline group said.
With the ASLC approvals in hand, FlySafair chief marketing officer, Mr Kirby Gordon, said work is now underway to engage the relevant airport and civil aviation authorities in each market and begin planning its flight schedules.
“We’re very excited about these opportunities. We’ve been planning our expansion to more regional destinations for some time and we are confident that we will continue to bring our same brand of hassle-free travel to passengers in these markets.
“While this is a big milestone, there is still a fair amount of work ahead of us from an operational perspective,” said Mr Gordon.
He said earlier this year, the low-cost carrier applied for rights to operate connections to a number of new destinations throughout the Southern African region, as well as additional frequencies to the island of Mauritius, which it already operates twice weekly.
FlySafair is based at the O.R. Tambo International Airport in South Africa and operates one of the world’s largest fleets of civil Lockheed L-100 Hercules cargo aircraft, with 25 aircarft.
It is one of the few local airlines still in the air following the grounding of several airlines over the past several months because of Covid-19 among other challenges.
FlySafair operates 120 daily flights to all major cities in South Africa and to Mauritius. The addition of new routes linking the region will offer welcome connectivity and increased capacity to regional destinations within Southern Africa, many of which have been constrained by the departures of previous route right holders.
The airline group believes it will provide passengers with more options for air travel at a competitive price.
Various bilateral agreements exist between South Africa and neighbouring countries, which govern the number of weekly flights that can be operated by different airlines in these markets.
In South Africa these frequencies are awarded to airlines by the ASLC, which is part of the Department of Transport. FlySafair was established in 1965 and launched the current brand in 2014, offering a wide range of specialist airlift services.
The airline has partnered with Kulula, Air Namibia, South African Airways and Ryanair before. Other airlines flying into Victoria Falls include Air Zimbabwe, Air Link, Ethiopian Airways, Fastjet, Kenyan Airways and Eurowings Discover.
The Airports Company of Zimbabwe has said it will continue engaging airlines to fly into different parts of Zimbabwe. — @ncubeleon
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Bongani Ndlovu