A vacuum was created with the departure of Jet Airways on the route of Mumbai – Johannesburg. And the opportunity was taken up by South African Airways and announced another weekly flight between the two cities.
The services on the route will begin from June 16 and the flights will be increased to 6 from August 21. Jet Airways released a statement which said, “as part of its ongoing network evaluation with a clear focus on profitability, the airline has redeployed its assets on its existing route network, involving temporarily suspending its Mumbai-Johannesburg flights from June 11.”
Earlier, Jet Airways was the only domestic airlines that connected Mumbai with Johannesburg, apart from the code share arrangement that Air India has with the South African Airways. A few years back, Air India used to operate to Johannesburg but only as a code share arrangement with South African Airways.
Sajid Khan the South African Airways country manager for India said, “We have witnessed a steady performance with growth in leisure tourism and MICE tourism from this country, which presents an important market for us, and this increase in flight frequency is a step in the right direction to meet market expectations”. The airline in a statement said that the new service will be on Sundays.
