Air Mauritius builds on Durban service

Plan to offer 10 weekly flights to South Africa AIR MAURITIUS will become the only international airline operating in and out of Durban after January 12, when Singapore Airlines discontinues flights to the city. "There's no chance of us pulling out of Durban. In fact, we are planning to increase our service on the route from once a week to twice weekly in the new year," says Raj Beedassy, regional manager southern Africa. More flights from Mauritius are also planned into both Johannesburg and Cape Town, he says, which will provide South African cargo GSA Aviation GSA with vastly increased capacity on the route, and with transhipment options on the airline's services to other parts of the world. Current plans are for the airline to increase frequencies to South Africa from its current six flights a week to 10. Johannesburg will get six of these, and Durban and Cape Town two each. Durban has become something of a focal point for development of services. Beedassy points out that while other international airlines serving this country need to stop in Johannesburg before Durban, geographically a direct Mauritius-Durban flight makes sense. Growing trade with India also makes the Durban flight a promising one from a freight point of view, with Air Mauritius serving three hubs on the sub-continent in Bombay, Delhi and Madras. The Durban-Mauritius-Chennai sector is also proving popular. A night departure from Johannesburg, the first the airline has undertaken, will be launched at the end of March, leaving Johannesburg at 23h00.