FlySafair, South Africa’s leading low-cost airline, landed at Hosea Kutako International Airport for the first time this week, connecting Cape Town to Windhoek. The maiden landing marked the start of the regional route for FlySafair from Cape Town, making cross-border travel between the two cities more accessible and affordable for customers.
“We are extremely excited to have this highly-anticipated route operational before the summer holidays at the end of the year and offer our customers further opportunities to visit loved ones, explore the sights of Namibia and its capital, or enjoy a trip to Cape Town conveniently. It has been a long-time goal of ours to expand into the Windhoek market and with more aircraft availability in Cape Town, we have been able to make this a reality, enhancing connectivity between two popular destinations in Southern Africa,” said Kirby Gordon, chief marketing officer at FlySafair.
Tourism minister, Pohamba Shifeta in a statement delivered on his behalf by the tourism and gaming director in the ministry, Sebulon Chicalu, stated it is never a doubt that crucial to the effective development of tourism products is destination assurance, which strengthens trustworthiness in the marketplace. “It is to deliver on our promise! This, together with our travel and tourism and hospitality partners, is indeed focused on delivering,” Shifeta added.
“The Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism has in its National Tourism Sector Recovery Plan 2022 -2024, under programme 14, “Improve Air Access to Namibia and Tourism Flagships” underlined without uncertainty that accessibility to Namibia is a pillar of the tourism sector recovery process. We will thus continue to support the ease of connectivity to the country. We need a sustainable approach to increase both frequency and new routes shortly so that it can encourage the achievement of the target of foreign tourist arrivals,” Shifeta said.
Namibia Airports Company (NAC) board chairman, Leake Hangala indicated that attracting new routes, building aviation capacity, and lowering airfares are part of government’s agenda to grow the domestic economy and in the process create jobs.
“It is for this reason that “Air-Connect Namibia”, a forum initiated by the Namibia Airports Company, and consisting of all key stakeholders in the aviation and tourism sectors has been hard at work to promote Namibia as a travel and business destination. We are thus happy to welcome FlySafair to Windhoek,” said Hangala.
Historically, flying between Cape Town and Windhoek has been a costly exercise, with airfares traditionally ranging from N$5 000 up to N$9 000. FlySafair now offers tickets from as low as N$2 000, providing a budget-friendly option for travellers to see family and friends, to pursue business interests in both cities or for students studying in Cape Town, to fly home for the holidays.
FlySafair’s inaugural route landed at Hosea Kutako International Airport with 126 passengers while the flight back to Cape Town left with 141 passengers. Cape Town to Windhoek flights will run twice a week on Tuesdays and Saturdays.