Emirates Airline is growing its offering to South Africa with plans to add more frequencies on routes to the country’s three largest cities.
The carrier is already serving Cape Town (CPT), Durban (DUR) and Johannesburg (JNB) from its Dubai (DXB) 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 will add two more weekly flights on the DXB-DUR route from Dec. 1, upping service from 5X-weekly to daily. The airline will add a second daily flight on the DXB-CPT route from Feb. 1, 2023, bringing its service to Cape Town back to 2019 levels.
Emirates will start a third daily flight on the DXB-JNB route from March 1, 2023, using a Boeing 777 aircraft. It currently operates the route 2X-daily with Airbus A380 aircraft. “The third daily flight from Johannesburg will help meet high demand with more than 300 available [added] seats each way, and will offer additional flexibility for South African travelers with a new evening departure for easier connectivity to Europe, the Americas, West Asia and Far East via Dubai,” the airline said.
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.
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