Cathay Pacific and Ethiopian Airlines want to increase their direct flights drastically - including routes via Durban and more to Cape Town.
Although the gazetting process is primarily to enable comment and feedback from the public before licenses are awarded, Cathay Pacific told News24 Business they have"received permission to operate the Cape Town and Durban routes as per the official government gazette". The slightly more curious route directly to Durban may have something to do with the Indian market, too - a strategy that previously tripped up SAA.
"Hong Kong is still not fully open after Covid, and neither is China. So they still have limitations, and they've not done so well lately. Their strategy may therefore be to see where they can hit the ground running," he says. "Ethiopian Airlines were planning to operate a flight out of Lomé, Togo, to South Africa - yet they were approved to fly out of Addis Ababa. They're doing that to tap into their US services that stop over in Lomé, who they want to bring to Johannesburg or Cape Town without taking them all the way to Addis," says Mojapele.