Emirates (EK) RegionalManager for Southern Africa, Afzal Parambil, has pledged the total restoration of the airline’s pre-COVID schedule in South Africa in the coming months, as well as the introduction of a second Airbus A380 service on flights between Johannesburg and Dubai from July.
According to Parambil, the airline has recovered 70% of its network and resumed flights to 130 destinations globally so far.
He said this represented around one million seats per week and expected that capacity could increase to 80% of EK’s pre-COVID levels by the end of the European summer - around September.
He said: “Pre-COVID, we had 49 weekly flights, including four dailies to Johannesburg (JNB), a double-daily service to Cape Town (CPT) and a daily flight to Durban (DUR). We currently operate double-daily to JNB, and one of those flights is an A380 service featuring our flagship product. We operate daily to CPT and five weekly flights to DUR. From July, we are going to have both flights to JNB operated by an A380.”
Parambil explained that increasing demand was boosting confidence in South Africa as a destination. “Capacity is based on demand. Globally, we have challenges like every other airline including manpower constraints, but our recruitment process has also been fast-tracked. As we have ramped up our operation, we have ramped up recruitment,” he added.
Codeshare with Airlink
EK is also on the brink of launching a new codeshare agreement with Airlink, Parambil said, which, he said, would extend the carrier’s reach in ‘second’ and ‘third-tier’ cities on Airlink’s network.
“The partnership with Airlink gives us access to most of the tourist points in the region. Customers can connect without any hassle. And, the number-one thing people are looking for is ease of travel,” he said.
Parambil committed to growing the airline’s agency business by retaining agency commission and other performance incentive agreements.
He said: “When we restarted we saw things going back to normal from a trade perspective. There were lots of agencies that had to downsize or agents who left the industry to do other things but the distribution mix is pretty much the same. We were so impressed to see the trade’s resilience and how it stood up against the pandemic. Agents stood their ground and we had very, very limited defaults. The size of the business may have reduced, but it is picking up.”
Parambil concluded: “Our strategy remains the same. We understand the value of agency business and we are seeing more customers going back to traditional travel agents.”
EK has just announced an agreement with South African Tourism to grow Brand South Africa in overseas markets.
