Flight searches by South Africans are surpassing pre-pandemic levels for this year's winter period by about 40%, according to global travel search site Cheap Flights. Over a third (36%) of all flight searches have been made for destinations in Europe, signalling that South Africans are once again open to travelling beyond their borders.
This is around a 30% increase in outbound European destination flight searches compared with the pre-pandemic period.
London ranked first among the top-10 destinations for this period, with a spike of about 45% in searches, compared with 2019 levels.
Istanbul came in second place with an 84% rise in flight searches in comparison to 2019. Being one of the best connecting airports for South Africans travelling further to Europe and overseas, Istanbul was listed among the most-searched cities and took sixth place before the pandemic.
Amsterdam, Athens and Lisbon take up the next European top spots, seeing around 52%, 25% and 3% growth in flight searches respectively, compared with the pre-pandemic period.
With regards to searches for larger regions, besides the United Kingdom – which saw an increase of around 47% in flight searches compared with 2019 – the United States received 15% more searches and Turkey about 79% more.
