South Africa is set to welcome a new airline in October 2024, as Norse Atlantic Airways adds non-stop flights between London and Cape Town. Affectionately known as ‘The Mother City,’ Cape Town is one of Africa’s most famous tourist destinations, and Norse Atlantic is fully confident about the demand on the route.
Launching flights to The Mother City
The Norwegian low-cost, long-haul carrier announced the launch of flights from London Gatwick (LGW) to Cape Town International Airport (CPT) on April 18, 2024. Flights will commence on October 28, just after airlines switch to winter schedules based on IATA slot seasons. The service will be operated seasonally, with three weekly flights on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays with the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.
In an interview with Jon Howell, Founder and CEO of AviaDev Africa, Norse Atlantic Airways Senior Vice President of Communications Philip Allport shed more light on the airline’s new route. Cape Town will be its first destination in Africa and flying from Gatwick makes it its longest non-stop route. The airline did land a 787 in Cape Town last year, but as part of a charter flight to and from Antarctica.
High demand for Cape Town flights
Norse Atlantic is looking to take advantage of the heavy tourism and business traffic between the UK and South Africa, and it has seen significant demand on the route. It will be the third airline to offer non-stop flights from London to Cape Town, after British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. However, Norse says that its value fares have already seen great reception. With a bag and a meal, Norse Atlantic offers fares as low as $799, while Virgin and British Airways are over $1,000 for an economy standard ticket.
The carrier has been eyeing flights to Cape Town for a while, as it is also a very important market for connectivity outside of South Africa. London-Cape Town was one of the top routes on Norse Atlantic’s list of new routes to operate, and the carrier had been working on commencing flights for a long time now. Philip Allport added,
“It opens up a lot of possibilities for us and for consumers, having an airline like Norse now operating on those routes. It’s not a flash decision; it’s something we’ve been working on for a long time at Norse, and it’s been very high up on the list of routes that we’ve wanted to operate. So, as soon as the necessary regulatory permissions came through, we put flights on sale.”
The airline also sees October as the ideal time to launch flights, as Southern Africa will be going into the summer season. The peak period has seen many frequency increases, route resumptions, and new flights to and from various South African cities. Last year, Cape Town Airport saw record-breaking numbers in terms of international traffic. In December 2023, it received over 317,000 two-way international passengers, the highest monthly total ever recorded.
Partnerships and onward connections
Norse Atlantic is a relatively new airline founded in February 2021 and commencing operations in June 2022. It is a direct point-to-point carrier with no official interline or codeshare agreements with other airlines. It does, however, use a virtual interline system, which involves combining flights between airlines without formal partnerships to create a single itinerary for passengers.
The system is already well-established in Europe, so Norse is looking for opportunities to also make it work in Africa. The airline works closely with easyJet, which has a significant presence at Gatwick. So, with the virtual interline system, passengers flying from Cape Town can purchase tickets to several other destinations and travel via Gatwick with Norse Atlantic and easyJet.
Therefore, there are many options for onward connectivity from Cape Town to London, but there are limited options when flying to South Africa. “For the other way around, in the instance of people traveling to Cape Town, that is something we’re very interested in looking at and progressing further in the future,” noted Allport.
As a well-known travel destination, Cape Town fits into the airline’s route development strategy. Allport did not rule out the possibility of the airline expanding to other popular destinations in Kenya or Tanzania. However, it needed to start somewhere strong in Africa, and The Mother City was the first choice.
Source: https://simpleflying.com/norse-atlantic-cape-town-why/
