Germany’s Condor is launching flights to Johannesburg (JNB) during the winter 2022/23 season, taking its network in South Africa to two destinations.
The route from Frankfurt (FRA) will join the leisure airline’s existing service to Cape Town (CPT), which is scheduled to resume in November after being suspended because of the pandemic.
From Nov. 1, the carrier will serve Frankfurt-Johannesburg twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. Frankfurt-Cape Town will also restart with three flights per week, operating on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
In total, Condor plans to fly to 21 long-haul destinations during the winter season, including the newly announced flights to Boston (BOS), Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO). The US services from Frankfurt follow the recent launch of operations to New York John F Kennedy (JFK).
The Frankfurt-Johannesburg route will see Condor enter another market that it previously left to Lufthansa. According to data provided by OAG Schedules Analyser, Lufthansa is currently the sole provider of nonstop service between the destinations, flying daily using Boeing 747-8s.
Prior to the pandemic, South African Airways also offered daily service from Johannesburg to both Frankfurt and Munich (MUC), but both routes have been suspended since the onset of the COVID crisis.
Earlier this month, a draft decision from Germany’s competition regulator Bundeskartellamt found that Lufthansa must give Condor access to its feeder flights so that Condor can compete against Lufthansa on long-haul routes.
Lufthansa has been feeding Condor’s long-haul routes for decades but opted to terminate the deal in early 2021. This prompted Condor to complain that Lufthansa had abused its market dominance.
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