FlySafair has announced that it has received approval to operate flights to 11 new destinations within Southern Africa following a meeting of the Air Services Licensing Council of South Africa (ASLC).
The local low-cost carrier said that various bilateral agreements exist between South Africa and neighbouring countries, which govern the number of weekly flights that can be operated by different airlines in these markets and in South Africa, these frequencies are awarded to airlines by the ASLC, which is part of the Department of Transport.
Earlier this year, the low-cost carrier revealed that it applied for rights to operate connections to a number of new destinations throughout the Southern African region, as well as additional frequencies to the island of Mauritius, which it already operates twice weekly.
It said that the ASLC had approved its application to operate flights from Cape Town and Johannesburg to Gaborone, Livingstone, Luanda, Lusaka, Maputo, and Victoria Falls.
In addition, the airline had been approved for frequencies from Johannesburg to Bulawayo, Nairobi and Seychelles, as well as between Cape Town and Windhoek. Its application for routes between Johannesburg and Harare, Windhoek and Zanzibar and additional frequencies to Mauritius is still pending.
According to FlySafair Chief Marketing Officer Kirby Gordon, they’re very excited about these opportunities.
“We’ve been planning our expansion to more regional destinations for some time and are confident that we will continue to bring our same brand of hassle-free travel to passengers in these markets,” said Gordon.
He said that with the ASLC approvals in hand, FlySafair can now engage the relevant airport and civil aviation authorities in each market and begin planning its flight schedules.
“While this is a big milestone, there is still a fair amount of work ahead of us from an operational perspective. By launching a host of new services, we hope to provide passengers with more options for air travel at a competitive price,” explained Gordon.
Since the beginning of January, the airline added four new aircraft to its current schedule, with one more on the way in January.
It also said that the addition of these new routes to FlySafair’s network would offer welcome connectivity and increased capacity to regional destinations within Southern Africa, many of which have been constrained by the departures of previous route right holders.
Read the latest issue of Travel digital magazine here.
