Airline spreads wings to Walvis

COMAIR intends to increase its presence in the local market and will soon introduce a scheduled flight between Walvis Bay and Johannesburg.

The JSE-listed aviation company has been granted two new African routes by the South African Air Licensing Council and will start with scheduled flights from Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and to Walvis Bay in Namibia soon, it announced last Thursday.Comair, which operates the British Airways airline in the Southern African region and the kulula.com airline, noted that the additional routes would add to its existing regional African network.It already had scheduled flights from Johannesburg to Harare and Victoria Falls, in Zimbabwe; Livingstone, in Zambia; Windhoek, in Namibia; and Mauritius.Comair sales and route development executive manager Stuart Cochrane said that the granting of these new licences would bring much-needed competition to the regional African routes that have been dominated by state-owned airlines.This would lead to more competitive pricing and improved service levels, he added.’The entry of a private, non-state-subsidised airline competitor on the routes will support the South African government’s airlift strategy, which aims to increase air access into and out of South Africa, and will support economic growth and tourism,’ commented Cochrane.- www.engineeringnews.co.za