CAPE Town Air Access is
optimistic that another
carrier will soon fill the
gap in capacity on the LondonCape Town route left by the
collapse of Thomas Cook.
This is the word from Wesgro
ceo, Tim Harris, following Cape
Town Air Access’s attendance
(as part of Team SA along with
SA Tourism and Acsa) at the
recent World Routes 2019
conference in Australia.
“The conversation with
other airlines that could pick
up that capacity is really
encouraging and has been
almost immediate, so I am
fairly optimistic that we will
be able to ride out that loss
of connectivity quite quickly,”
he told TNW. Tim declined
to comment which airlines.
Thomas Cook served Cape
Town seasonally three times
a week from London Gatwick
Airport. Its demise has given
British Airways a monopoly on
the route.
Cape Town Air Access project
manager, Paul van den Brink,
said bilateral air service talks
between the South African
and UK government were due
to take place in December. It
was hoped the governments
would iron out the current
bureaucratic restriction on
Norwegian Airlines taking
up the extra capacity from
Gatwick Airport.
Even though Norwegian
Airlines has a UK Air Operator
Certificate (AOC), it is majority
owned in Norway. This means
it is not a designated carrier
under the current bilateral air
service agreement between
South Africa and the UK.
“There is a lot of interest
from potential new carriers, but
what is most important for us
is to keep our network locked
in and to retain the flights that
we have,” said Tim. “When we
touched base with all of our
carriers that are already flying
to Cape Town, one or two of
them have had some issues,
but overall we got very positive
feedback.
“We had really interesting
conversations about growing
the network to destinations
that are un-served, such as
South America, Australia and
Scandinavia.
