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If you’ve tried to book a flight out of the Mother City recently, you’re probably still picking your jaw up off the floor.
What was a predictable, if somewhat costly, R14 500 return fare to London in mid-February has, within just 10 days, increased to a flight ticket that threatens to leave a R50 000 hole in your wallet, if you want to fly direct from the Mother City to Heathrow. If time's no matter, and you don't mind flying via East Africa, you might get that figure down closer to R30 000. And that’s not for a seat at the sharp end, but a humble economy class ticket. If you can even get a seat, that is.
And it all comes down to that good old economic principle of supply and demand. Following the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East on 28 February, the global aviation network has experienced a systemic shock not seen since the COVID pandemic.
According to aviation analytics, the scale of disruption is staggering. Globally, more than 40,000 flights have been cancelled since 28 February, removing around 4.4 million seats from the global aviation market.
And it’s hit Cape Town and South Africa especially hard.
Our location at the very tip of Africa—coupled with the regional dominance built by Middle Eastern carriers over the past decade—means South Africa is disproportionately reliant on Middle East connections for affordable long-haul travel. So when airspace shuts down and flights are grounded, the sudden instability in that region has effectively closed our most popular routes to the rest of the world.
Until last week, the ‘Big Three’ Gulf carriers – Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad (out of Johannesburg) – provided most of the competitive seating for Capetonians travelling to Europe, Asia and North America.
With the temporary closure of the Dubai and Doha hubs for transit traffic, around 4,000 seats per day (counting inbound and outbound travel) were removed from the Cape Town market alone.
When that much capacity vanishes overnight, the remaining seats on European carriers like British Airways, Lufthansa and KLM become highly sought after. Furthermore, travellers are no longer offered the cheapest ‘Economy Basic’ tickets; instead, they are being pushed into higher ‘Fare Buckets’ used by airlines, paying for the most expensive tickets and the only seats left in the system.
To make matters worse, global jet fuel prices have skyrocketed. Late last week, the price of jet fuel increased by nearly 60 percent compared to the week before, according to the International Air Transport Association. The last time that happened, when Russia invaded Ukraine, airfares rose by more than a quarter.
And while these costs have not yet been included in the basic ticket prices, we can expect ticket prices to rise, whether through higher fuel surcharges or an increase in the base fare.
For travellers needing to fly in the coming weeks, the news is either bad or worse. While some flight aggregators still list the cheap Middle Eastern fares we’ve grown accustomed to, many are listed on Qatar Airways, and there’s no guarantee those flights will actually depart.
So if you’re needing a last-minute flight from Cape Town to Europe or Asia – whether it’s emergency travel, or to make up for a cancelled flight – your options are to fly direct, where capacity is limited, or look at one of the African carriers connecting further afield.
A quick scan of airline options heading north in the next week makes for dismal reading.
The next available economy fare (on 19 March) on British Airways direct to Heathrow, comes in at a shade over R50,000. An economy class ticket on Ethiopian Airlines from Cape Town to London costs around R29,000. Kenya Airways via Nairobi? About the same price. Want to keep your dream of a Thai beach holiday alive? An Ethiopian economy ticket will cost you R20,000 one-way. Returning home? Only Business Class is available for the next week, at R50,000 per seat.
Direct to Amsterdam? There are a few economy tickets available on their popular direct flight in the next 10 days… but at R34,800 return. On Air France, the cheapest ticket to Paris in the next 10 days was R49,000, with limited availability and a connection in Amsterdam. If it makes you feel better, the surges are not entirely unique to Cape Town. In Australia, the Sydney to London route has seen one-way fares on Singapore Airlines double in price.
Good news? Emirates has just restarted a reduced schedule, with some affordable fares perhaps intended to encourage travellers to put their faith in an air hub that has been struck a few times by missile debris in the conflict.
For those in Cape Town currently planning a trip, the best advice is to simply hit pause, if your travel is not urgent. Right now, airlines are in a reactive phase, trying their best to repatriate stranded travellers, and prices should stabilise once more flights come on stream and the crisis has passed. How much the hike in jet fuel will influence future pricing, we’ll have to wait and see.
If you simply have to book now, pay close attention to the "YQ" tax code on your fare breakdown. That’s the fuel surcharge, and if this exceeds 40 percent of the total ticket cost, you are paying a premium at the peak of the market panic. If you can, stay home or extend your trip until things settle down.
*Flight price estimates for March 2026 travel are accurate at the time of publishing.
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