Airlines have welcomed the decision to reopen South Africa’s borders and are forging ahead with the resumption of international commercial flights, despite uncertainty about government regulations.

“Bearing in mind that a couple of months ago we were being told that South Africa’s borders would remain closed until 2021, this is indeed a victory for the industry, despite the restrictions that were announced last night. We have moved in the right direction and the objective now is to continue to work with government to open up the borders in totality and to ensure that entry requirements are manageable and effective rather than rigorous and difficult,” said Carla da Silva, chairperson of the Board of Airline Representatives of South Africa.

On the subject of whether the government’s list of high-risk countries, which it intends to review fortnightly, would discourage airlines from returning to South Africa due to uncertainty, Da Silva said the implementation of the list was clearly intended to monitor infection rates and save lives.

“Airlines are permitted to fly to South Africa, not only to facilitate business travel but also for the transportation of long-term visa holders and returning residents, etc. It is only leisure travel that is being restricted. Most countries are opening up in a phased approach and there are no best practices worldwide that one can review. It is about opening the borders in a responsible, cautious manner and assessing what does and does not work. This is unfamiliar territory for everyone, including government,” she said.

Liezl Gericke, Head of Middle East, Africa and India for Virgin Atlantic, said while the announced regulations were disappointing due to their restrictiveness, airlines were also grateful that they were being permitted to fly again.

“We must remember that domestic travel reopened with restrictions a few months ago and is now fully open. We need to be patient, to test drive things in October and November, and to work with government to slowly reopen international travel fully. The announcement was not unexpected, as we all knew that a country categorisation would be introduced, with more restrictions implemented for countries with higher infection rates.”

Despite the UK featuring on the list of high-risk countries, Virgin Atlantic is unwavering in its decision to resume services to South Africa.

“Our first flight is still scheduled to fly from London to Johannesburg on October 18 and we will start off with a schedule of four flights per week. We understand the government’s decision to restrict leisure travel from the UK at present, as the country is currently seeing a huge spike in infections, but we are still hopeful that leisure travel will be reinstated by December in time for the peak inbound season. Leisure and VFR travel is an extremely important market right now, which we believe will be ready to bounce back earlier than corporate travel, which has to consider huge responsibilities to employees regarding duty of care,” said Gericke.

Da Silva said she believed that the corporate-leisure mix on a particular route would be a significant deciding factor for airlines that were considering reinstating South African flights.

Both Gericke and Da Silva said there was still a lot of uncertainty relating to requirements for passengers transiting via high-risk airline hubs.

“We are seeking further clarification on the requirements and are also recommending to government, via the respective engagement meetings we have, to revive our industry and ultimately open our borders in totality. We take inputs and recommendations from our Barsa members and exco to ensure that we drive a consolidated approach, taking everybody’s needs and requirements into account,” said Da Silva.

She also reconfirmed that, as business travel was permitted from high-risk countries subject to protocol adherence, it made sense that business travellers would be permitted to fly into South Africa via high-risk country hubs. She thought travellers would also initially look for the most direct routes for their travel plans, as they were still nervous and wanted to avoid long flying times and transits through airports.

Gericke said while connecting networks were important, Virgin’s South Africa-London routes were traditionally dominated by point-to-point traffic and transiting traffic from the US. As the US was also classified a high-risk country at present, Virgin would be less affected than many other carriers by transiting restrictions.

First international airlines to reinstate their South African commercial flights are:

• Lufthansa, which was the first international airline, touching down at ORTIA at 08h30 on October 1;
• Emirates, whose first scheduled flight landed in Cape Town on October 1; and
• KLM, whose Johannesburg and Cape Town to Amsterdam flights also operated on October 1.