Good news for locals and tourists planning to combine their city sightseeing with a safari adventure. Budget carrier FlySafair has announced it will launch direct flights between Cape Town International Airport and Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport (KMIA) in South Africa's eastern province of Mpumalanga.
Located outside the city of Mbombela, KMIA is just a one-hour drive from the Malelane and Numbi gates into the world-famous Kruger National Park, and two hours from the Sabi Sand Reserve.
Explaining the reasoning behind the new route, FlySafair's Kirby Gordon said: 'Although flights to areas surrounding the Kruger National Park are readily available from Johannesburg, there are limited commercial flight options from Cape Town.'
He's not wrong. At the moment it's only regional airline Airlink that flies between Cape Town and Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport, with return fares normally over R7000. FlySafair says that one-way tickets on their route will start at R1851. These fares exclude checked luggage, which is charged at R210 per item.
Time Out did a few trial bookings, on a selection of dates in April, May, July and August, which showed return fares on FlySafair at R4018 against Airlink fares ranging from R6558 to R7738.
'Cape Town and the Kruger National Park are two of our country's most popular tourist destinations. Unfortunately, though, they sit in opposite corners of our country, making travel between them both inconvenient and costly,' said Gordon. 'We hope that by introducing our low-cost option to the market, we can encourage more tourists to build a visit to Kruger into their trip itineraries while also opening this gem to the people of the Western Cape.'
The new FlySafair route launches on April 2, 2024, and will be flown with a Boeing 737-800. Flights depart Cape Town at 9 am on Tuesday and Saturday, landing at 11.30 am. The return flight departs from KMIA at 12.05 pm, landing in Cape Town at 2.50 pm.
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