Pretoria - Visitors to the North West province and Sun City Resort can now get there in a record time of 15 minutes from Gauteng, following the introduction of scheduled flights from Joburg to Pilanesberg.
The move was made possible by a trilateral agreement between Sun International, South African Express Airways and the North West provincial government.
It includes flights from Cape Town, which will cover the distance in just two hours.
The return flights into Pilanesberg from OR Tambo and Cape Town International airport are available three times a week – on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
A return ticket from Joburg would set travellers back R2 200, while flights from Cape Town will cost R3 000. There is a possibility of more frequent flights being added at a later stage.
From Pretoria, people who would normally have to drive the 143km trip in more than an hour to reach Sun City can now head to Joburg and fly to Pilanesberg, which would be less than three-quarters of the time.
North West Tourism Department head Charles Ndabeni said the province was the seventh least developed economy in South Africa, and the plan was to improve to second position after Gauteng by 2030.
“Agriculture, culture and tourism will serve as the primary drivers behind the economy and one way ensure this is to make the province easier to access.
“The airlift is important in positioning the North West as a destination site within South Africa to visit. Our province has state-of-the-art landing facilities, and we couldn’t sit back and not utilise these,” he said.
Ndabeni said this would help to create 25 000 jobs in the tourism sector over a five-year period.
SA Express representative Brian van Wyk said they were happy to resuscitate the route to Pilanesberg, which they operated back in 1999.
“We are proud that we could unlock economic development, grow tourism and create jobs in the province. There is a saying that in aviation when one direct job is created, you have in essence created six to eight others for the community,” he said.
Pretoria News