from DION HENRICK in Cape Town
CAPE TOWN, (CAJ News) – THE highest international terminal numbers since the resumption of international travel, and airlines expanding or introducing flights to the city, Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) is returning to pre-COVID passenger travel numbers.
Wesgro, the official tourism, trade and investment promotion agency for Cape Town and the Western Cape province, disclosed that February 2022 currently showed the highest international terminal numbers since the resumption of global travel in October 2020.
A total of 125 861 international travellers flew to CTIA, producing a recovery rate of 52 percent compared to the same period in 2019.
Domestic terminal numbers increased significantly between December 2021 and January 2022, with an increase of 8 percent, before dropping slightly in February.
However, compared to the same period in 2019, the statistics for February 2022 show a total of 479 942 domestic passengers with a recovery rate of 71 percent.
Nonetheless, in 2021 the total domestic passenger recovery came to 50 percent of 2019 figures for a total of 4,2 million passengers.
This, according to Wesgro, was significantly higher than the 2020 calendar year, where a 38 percent recovery was achieved for a total of 3,2 million passengers.
Wesgro reported preliminary data for March 2022, already depicts strong growth for international passenger numbers with a 58 percent recovery compared to the same period in 2019.
“Without any further setbacks this trend is set to continue in the coming months as international airlines reinstate connectivity and capacity into Cape Town International Airport,” the agency stated.
International passengers are anticipated to increase significantly in the coming months to the second-busiest airport in South Africa, after OR Tambo, and fourth-busiest in Africa.
This as international airlines expand, resume or introduces flights to the Mother City.
FlyNamibia has increased their frequencies on the Cape Town-Windhoek route also to six times per week as of March 1.
Singapore Airlines has restarted its Cape Town-Johannesburg-Singapore route, operating six times per week. The service will be daily from March 28.
Emirates, which operates a daily schedule for the Cape Town-Dubai route and will increase to ten time per week from May.
United Airlines will operate their year-round Newark/ New York – Cape Town route starting June.
KLM is expanding frequencies on the Cape Town-Amsterdam link to six times weekly and in July, will return to a daily service.
In October, Condor will resume operations of their France-Cape Town route.
Activities will rise in November.
Then, Eurowings Discover, a subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group, will be operating direct flights from Frankfurt, Germany to Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport.
Eurowings is to be the first intercontinental airline to introduce a scheduled air service into the great Kruger National Park region.
Delta Airlines aims to operate a year-round schedule with three weekly flights from Atlanta to Cape Town, starting mid-November, pending approval.
– CAJ News