September 2022 – WHILE THE REST OF AFRICA tries to rebuild its airline route networks following Covid, the Western Cape is succeeding in getting European and US Based airlines to prioritise the Cape Town route – even while they are cancelling other global routes due to airport congestion.
The Cape Town Air Access initiative is now recognised around the world for its pioneering work in providing a huge boost to Cape Town tourism. Most importantly, the initiative serves as an excellent model that should be adopted by other key tourist destinations in Africa.
Since its inception in 2015, the Cape Town Air Access team has been instrumental in the establishment of 17 new routes and the expansion of 21 existing ones. Pre-Covid, more than 750,000 inbound seats have been added to its international network.
The Cape Town Air Access Initiative is an excellent example of public private partnerships (PPP). The Initiative shows the power of well managed collaboration; and it has been so effective that it is considered a positive disrupter of tourism, in the same way that Uber and Airbnb disrupted the traditional tourism market.
‘Their relentless pursuit of direct flights’
As described in Robin Rabec’s video interview with Cape Town Airport Regional GM Mark Maclean, (available on www.saflyer.com) the role of the airport is key to facilitating Western Cape air connectivity. The Initiative’s drive to broaden the air transport network has paid off as Cape Town now has 17 new direct non-stop flights to destinations such as Dubai, Istanbul, Zurich, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.
For the Western Cape, the Air Access Initiative has also created much needed additional conference demand, and at better prices, thanks to the successful combination of investment by the private sector, airlines and local government in conference and event facilities. For Cape Town this resulted in significant private-sector investment in the city, including the extension of the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
Important for African airline connectivity is that the Air Access initiative has also raised the level of business travel, which globally is under pressure due to the shift to online meetings. The improvement in air connectivity created by this Initiative helps push back the swing to online meetings, thanks to its facilitation of air travel for the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) industry.
The Western Cape government justifiably claims that, “The Cape Town Air Access team has changed the game in terms of accessibility to our destination. Their relentless pursuit of direct flights to Cape Town has yielded the addition of 1.5 million two-way seats, bringing job-creating tourists to our region. (Pre-Covid) foreign tourist numbers increased by 29.8% year on year, while major attractions in the province have achieved a 19.8% growth in visitor numbers.”
Now that the model has been established, we can only hope that similar dynamic leadership can use the example of the Air Access Initiative to improve air transport connectivity in key tourist destinations such as Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, and Addis Ababa.
