Delta heads for CPT
DELTA Air Lines is adding three weekly flights between Cape Town International Airport and New York's JFK Airport, via Dakar, Senegal.

The proposed flight will complement Delta's existing daily service between Johannesburg and Atlanta (via Dakar) and will offer passengers convenient connections via New York JFK to around 45 destinations throughout the United States.

Since Delta launched its Johannesburg route in December 2006, load factors have averaged around 80%, says Delta director of sales for Africa, the Middle East and India, Jimmy Eichelgruen. “Since January this year, SA has seen a steady rise in the number of US visitors and Delta's new service between Cape Town and New York will provide another convenient travel option for the thousands of American tourists wanting to discover South Africa for themselves,†he said.

Delta's proposed new direct service between Cape Town and New York JFK will be operated using 767-300ER aircraft with up to 214 seats in a two-class configuration.

I'm assuming that the stop in Dakar is simply because the 767 is unable to reliably make it all the way to CPT without refuling (and that the passenger debarkations in Dakar are few, if any).

Wouldn't it make more sense to use Windhoek as the first stop, which is two hours closer than CPT and is likely within non-stop range for a 767? Since a signficant number of passengers for SA are only going there for the purpose of connecting to Windhoek, this would seem a win-win rounting for an astute airline. I would think that any passenger debarkations in WDH would be replaced with WDH-CPT local traffic.

Naaah, this make too much sense and would likely be revenue-positive. An airline would never do such an out-of-character thing.

Kathi: A question on a slightly different subject. Let's say I'm going to Buenos Aires to shoot birds for a few days, then want to go on to southern Africa to do plains game for a week. Are there direct flights from South America across the South Atlantic? Or do Africa-bound passengers from South America have to go half-way around the world through Europe to reach southern Africa?

Stonecreek: I believe that Delta's daily flights were instituted due to business demands rather than hunting. The flight to Cape Town is most likely in response to business passengers, and their needs to do business there, rather than hunters, although we are beneficiaries of it as well.

On the subject of Delta making a stop in Windhoek. I would think that Delta has thought of that, but I doubt that Air Namibia and the Namibian politicians are ready to let that happen. When you have a monopoly on something your not likely to let others have a piece of the pie if you can prevent it.

Stonecreek,

SAA flies from Sao Paulo Brazil to JNB from March 30th, 2008 to Oct 18th 2008.

But then there is the firearms issue in South America to work with

Devildawg66: And if you've ever been to the airport in Windhoek you can see that it is not a bustling international airport capable of handling a buttload of airplanes anyway!

quote:

Originally posted by Devildawg66:
On the subject of Delta making a stop in Windhoek. I would think that Delta has thought of that, but I doubt that Air Namibia and the Namibian politicians are ready to let that happen. When you have a monopoly on something your not likely to let others have a piece of the pie if you can prevent it.

While Air Namibia is always stuggling, a direct flight from the U.S. would have very little effect on it. The AN passengers from Frankfurt and London are overwhelmingly European, with just a sprinkling of Americans.

A direct flight to WDH would be much more detrimental to SAA -- how much SAA influences Namibian decisions I cannot say. But the more influential factor for Namibian authorities in permiting such flight should be the potential increase in American tourism. Unfortunately, it looks like the US Dollar won't be that attractive to anyone in a few more months.

quote:

Stonecreek: I believe that Delta's daily flights were instituted due to business demands rather than hunting. The flight to Cape Town is most likely in response to business passengers, and their needs to do business there, rather than hunters, although we are beneficiaries of it as well.

Agreed. However, CPT passengers would surely rather do a brief stopover in Windhoek than in Dakar, wouldn't you think? So there would be no downside to that route from the passenger's perspective.

quote:

Originally posted by Kathi:
SAA flies from Sao Paulo Brazil to JNB from March 30th, 2008 to Oct 18th 2008. But then there is the firearms issue in South America to work with

THanks for the info, Kathi. No one flies to Africa from Buenos Aires? I've never visited Argentina, but my understanding is that firearms transit there is reasonably straight forward.

I believe that before God invented the 707, lots of people flew to Rio then on to southern Africa.

Seems like the first time I went over in '99 we left out of Myjammee on SAA. It sure seemed like we went south then headed east. I know we landed in Capetown first, then went on to Johannesburg.