New Durban routes in the pipeline

NEW routes from King Shaka
International Airport are on
the cards. This comes after
Air Seychelles and Ethiopian
Airlines announced their
suspension of services to
the city.
Air Seychelles will suspend
services as soon as July 27
and Ethiopian Airlines from
August 1.
In a statement, the
KwaZulu-Natal Provincial
Route Development
Committee says it is focused
on opening up direct air
services to London, Mumbai,
the Far East, and the US.
Although the committee
didn’t reveal which carriers
it had approached for
these new routes, industry
players say both RwandAir
and Singapore Airlines are
potential players.
SQ denies it is looking
at reintroducing flights to
Durban after it stopped
operations in 2003, but
RwandAir’s country manager
for South Africa, Thembela
Dladla says the carrier is
exploring the possibility of
flights to Durban in the near
future.
RwandAir would offer
Durban travellers muchneeded
additional
connections to Mumbai via
Kigali, as the withdrawal of
ET and HM has left a gap in
the market.
“Air Seychelles’ decision to
withdraw its services from
Durban is very sad, as it
offered the best alternative
to Ethiopian Airlines on
the route to Mumbai,”
says Dinesh Naidoo, group
operations director of SWG.
Dinesh says the airlines’
suspension of services won’t
have a major impact on fares
on the route, which is still
serviced by Emirates, Turkish
Airlines and Qatar Airways.
But, with less competition,
discounted fares will be few
and far between, he adds.
Air Seychelles cited the low
fares as one of the reasons
to halt operations to Durban.
Roy Kinnear, ceo of Air
Seychelles, said: “The
competitive nature of
the route and volume of
alternative options paired
with extremely low fares
being charged on the
Durban to India traffic flow
unfortunately meant this
was not a viable ongoing
commercial operation.”
The Dube TradePort
Corporation anticipates the
immediate impact on both
leisure and business travel
to be minimal. “International
passenger volumes continue
to grow at King Shaka
International Airport with
latest month-on-month data
showing a 7% increase.
Overall, Durban’s passenger
numbers have grown 155%
since 2010,” it said in a
statement.