By Rafiq Vayani
DUBAI: Emirates airline and FlySafair today announced an interline agreement, opening up connections for customers to selected routes on FlySafair’s network in South Africa.
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.
Customers can also take advantage of connecting to FlySafair’s points, without backtracking to their initial destination when catching their flight back to Dubai. Customers can book their travel with EK offices and travel agencies.
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. We look forward to working together and strengthening our relationship into the future.”
Kirby Gordon, Chief Marketing Officer at FlySafair said: “Today, we are excited to announce the launch of our interline agreement with Emirates Airline. The superb service and vast route network that Emirates offers is world-renowned, and we are proud to have partnered with them in providing customers greater connectivity when travelling.”
He added: “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% 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 into Johannesburg and Cape Town on 1 October, and Durban on 8 October, and is presently operating 17 flights a week into South Africa.
Emirates has put in enhanced safety measures in place across all of its onboard and on ground touchpoints. The airline continues to stimulate passenger demand through connecting customers via Dubai from close to 100 destinations, as well as building more connection opportunities in South Africa through partnerships like FlySafair that provide customers more convenience and flexibility.
