Emirates strengthens South African presence with FlySafair partnership

November 19, 2020: Emirates and FlySafair signed an interline agreement, opening up connections for customers to selected routes on FlySafair’s network in South Africa.

Badr Abbas, senior vice president commercial operations for Africa said, “We are pleased to begin our interline partnership with FlySafair. Their network complements our South African presence, providing an array of connections for our customers, which makes this a natural partnership. Together, we will open up new travel opportunities, and more choice for customers wishing to travel domestically."

Through the arrangement, Emirates and FlySafair plan to offer the ease of single-ticket travel and through tagging of baggage for travellers transferring from Emirates’ three gateways – Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban to FlySafair domestic points in South Africa, such as Port Elizabeth, East London and George.

Kirby Gordon, chief marketing officer at FlySafair said, “We are in a very fortunate position whereby we were able to restart operations in June this year. As of November, we will be operating at our full capacity again, which will see us operating just over 75 percent of the available domestic seat capacity in South Africa. International traffic is still very limited given the various restrictions in place, but we are happy to report that there has been a slow and steady uptick in the volumes of flights we are selling through our connection agreements like that with Emirates.”

Emirates resumed its operations to Johannesburg and Cape Town on October 1, and Durban on October 8, and is presently operating 17 flights a week into South Africa.