South African airline Airlink, fresh from receiving accolades as having the best On-Time Performance (OTP), yesterday announced a codeshare agreement with British Airways, taking over the routes and status occupied by the defunct Comair.
Comair, a former partner of British Airways, which formerly plied 40% of domestic air trips in South Africa and a number of international routes, applied for liquidation last year after running out of funds.
The code share agreement gives Airlink access between the UK, Europe, North America and more than 15 destinations in southern Africa including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia with bases in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.
The agreement means British Airways’ customers travelling, for example, from Cape Town or Johannesburg to, or transiting through, London (or vice versa) will be able to connect to their final destination on a single ticket.
This will offer more choice and flexibility for those travelling from one of 18 towns and cities, such as Windhoek in Namibia and Durban in South Africa.
In total, 18 destinations are available as code share options when travelling from Heathrow via Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Aviation specialist Phuthego Mojapele said the codeshare agreement made a lot of sense for both airlines as they could maximise the interchange of customers during the varying seasons.
“When it is winter in Europe, people come here to sunny South Africa and British Airways, with passengers in Europe, America and England needed an airline with enough capacity to serve the surge of customers. Airlink, as you know, is not only regional, but it goes up to Entebbe in Uganda, St Helena, Namibia which is attractive to German tourists,” he said.
He said British Airways had up to 1.5 million bums-on-seats from Europe and other destinations, which they wanted to be served well in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) this week ranked Airlink as having achieved an average OTP performance of 95.52% across all its airports. OTP was defined as aircraft departing and arriving within 15 minutes of their scheduled times by Acsa, of any of the airlines using its airports last year.
Airlink’s CEO and managing director, Rodger Foster, said, “This is an important next step in our partnership with British Airways, which has a phenomenal global reach into the most important markets for our region. The marriage of our two networks will benefit both British Airways’ and Airlink’s customers, giving them even more choice with a wide range of itinerary options and connectivity possibilities.”
British Airways currently flies twice daily between Johannesburg and London Heathrow with A380 aircraft, twice daily between Cape Town and London Heathrow with B777 and A350 aircraft and three times per week between Cape Town and London Gatwick with B777 aircraft.
This is as the International Air Travel Association said this week that total traffic in 2022, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, rose 64.4% compared to 2021. It said globally, full year 2022 traffic was at 68.5% of pre-pandemic levels.
BUSINESS REPORT