This almost snuck in under the radar (LOLz – aircraft pun), but here’s some great news for people living in Sussex:
British Airways has announced it is launching a new route from Gatwick Airport to Cape Town later this year.
The major airline is expanding its fleet or aircraft at Gatwick as new three-times-a-week flights are being added to its schedule.
And I suppose it’s good news for anyone in Cape Town too, as adding more flights means more seat, means less competition, means cheaper flights overall. This good news is tempered somewhat by the realisation that if you take one of these new flights, you will end up landing at Gatwick Airport though.
Have you ever been to Gatwick Airport?
Hmm.
You’ll probably recall that it’s almost 4 years since SAA stopped flying the Cape Town to London route, citing “dwindling passenger numbers” on flights to Europe from the Mother City. Something that doesn’t seem to have stopped Swiss, Turkish, Condor, Air France, KLM and (of course) BA from operating such services.
But, back to the new (Northern hemisphere) “winter only” Gatwick flights:
The three flights will depart on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 6pm, arriving in to Cape Town at 7.50am the following morning.
This winter BA will add a fourth three-class Boeing 777 aircraft to its Gatwick fleet, bringing the total number of Boeing 777s at the airport to 12.
Note that those are two separate lines: there’s no suggestion that the LGW-CPT flights will be on 777s – BA currently operates 747s on its Cape Town to Heathrow route (for the moment, anyway).
I’ll get in touch with BA and see if they can tell me what aircraft they are planning on using. It would be nice to move on from the aging jumbos. After all, we were promised 787s way back in 2013…
UPDATE: And here’s the answer – 777s!
That does help, Jamie. Thank you.