Cape Town plans to add routes
to Australia and South America after last month reaching a deal
with United Airlines for its first direct flight to the United
States, the head of air access for South Africa's top tourist
city said.
South Africa is promoting tourism as a catalyst to help
kick-start its struggling economy and aims to attract five
million extra travellers, including four million international
tourists, by 2021.
Travel and tourism contributed around 426 billion rand ($29
billion), just under 9 percent of GDP, to South Africa's economy
in 2018, making it the largest on the continent, the World
Travel and Tourism Council says.
Most travellers to Africa's most advanced economy land at
the continent's busiest airport in Johannesburg.
They then have to take a two-hour flight to Cape Town, whose
white beaches, Robben Island and Table Mountain rank among South
Africa's top tourist attractions.
"If you look at our top ten of unserved markets, the United
States is the highest," Paul van den Brink, project manager at
private-public partnership Cape Town Air Access (CTAA) said.
Since 2015 CTAA has helped launch 15 new routes, including
the latest American one, while expanding 19 existing routes.
"The U.S. route will mean future tourism and investment
growth and means direct connectivity to one of the most
important markets in the world," Van den Brink told Reuters.
New direct air links to Brazil's Sao Paulo and an
as-yet-unnamed Australian city were also on the radar, he added.
A study for CTAA by Grant Thornton consultancy found a
direct flight from North America would add at least an extra
24,000 inbound passengers in its first year.
Tickets sales opened in April for the New York/Newark to
Cape Town route and have been "in line" with expectations, a
United Airlines spokesman said, without giving specific figures.
United is expected to fly a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner
aircraft from New York/Newark to Cape Town from Dec. 15 to the
end of March 2020, then for the entire new summer season.
If the route proves successful, it will look to operate it
each year, said Van den Brink.
"Our passenger numbers have jumped dramatically. We can
safely say we have literally doubled the number of seats coming
through the airport," Deon Cloete, general manager at Cape Town
international airport, said.
The airport is on track to complete a 7 billion rand ($478
million) revamp, including adding a new runway, within 5 years
to help cope with double digit growth for international arrivals
after breaking through the 10 million total arrivals figure for
the first time in December 2016.
($1 = 14.7421 rand).