Cape Town - British Airways is operating its busiest schedule ever to South Africa this summer season, offering up to 33 flights a week over peak periods.
The airline is upping its daily Cape Town Boeing 747-400 services to double-daily flights over the South African summer. This year it is also adding three Boeing 777-ER flights from Gatwick to Cape Town.
The first of these flights landed at Cape Town International on Friday.
Over the periods of especially high demand, from 1 to 9 January and 3 to 27 February, British Airways will offer two more Boeing 747-400 services from Heathrow. During these periods there will be 19 flights a week between the UK and Cape Town.
“The Cape Town route has grown consistently over the past few years and now even doubling the winter capacity isn’t enough to match demand. Fortunately Gatwick gives us the flexibility to add more services, using aircraft that are ideally configured for leisure customers,” said Sue Petrie, British Airways commercial manager for Southern Africa.
“These and the extra two Heathrow services mean that over the peak of peaks we’ll be offering over 6 000 seats a week on the route.”
Western Cape Minister of Economic Development and Tourism, Alan Winde, said the additional capacity and steady growth on this route is excellent news for the tourism sector.
"Forward bookings for our summer season show an increase in tourists travelling to the Western Cape, including 15% growth from the United Kingdom. As an important partner in driving this growth, I would like to thank British Airways for their continued business confidence in the Western Cape,” said Winde.
Deidre Davids, spokesperson for ACSA Cape Town International Airport welcomed the commitment British Airways has made to expand the Cape Town – London routes.
"Offering passengers the ability to link directly with London Gatwick increases Cape Town’s value proposition. The ability to offer passengers a seamless connection remains key. We expect this summer season to be especially busy and this can be attributed to this kind of route expansion,” she said.
The airline has also upped capacity to Johannesburg, where it operates 14 flights a week using a combination of A380s and Boeing 747-400s. It has now expanded the daily A380 services to 10 a week.
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