Emirates Airline increasing flights to South Africa, Angola

Emirates Airline, based in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is raising the number of its flights to Angola and South Africa later in 2009.

Emirates will start flights to the city of Durban in South Africa on October 1, 2009.

The new service to Luanda, the capital of Angola, is set to commence on October 25, 2009, Emirates says in a press release.

The new flights to Durban will supplement the daily services to Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa, according to Emirates Airline, the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates.

Emirates SkyCargo will use with the bellyhold of passenger planes flying to South Africa and Angola to transport a variety of consumer items in and out of Africa.

The airline says it also will conduct promotional activities ahead of the launch, both in Angola and South Africa.

The main push of the road show, the press release adds, comes from Emirates Holidays, the tour operating wing of Emirates Airline.

Emirates is organising road shows between July 22, 2009, and August 23, 2009, at various towns and cities in South Africa – including Pietermaritzburg, Umhlanga, Knysna, Port Elizabeth, Polokwane, George, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town.

The road shows will conclude in Johannesburg a month later, according to Emirates.

Notwithstanding the present global economic depression, Emirates says it has achieved an increase in its annual sales and that South Africa is one of the strongest regions of the carrier.

It may be noted that Emirates has been strengthening its flights across Africa. In February 2009, the airline started 2 flights a day to Lagos in Nigeria.
The Nairobi route is planned to be enhanced with an additional weekly flight from August 1, 2009.

And, on August 1, 2009, itself Emirates Airline will de-link its daily flights to Tunis and Tripoli.

At present, Emirates flies, in all, to 16 passenger and cargo destinations in Africa – Abidjan, Addis Ababa, Accra, Casablanca, Cairo, Cape Town, Dar es Salaam, Eldoret, Johannesburg, Entebbe, Lilongwe, Khartoum, Lagos, Tripoli, Tunis, and Nairobi.