ALITALIA, THE Italian airline, plans to resume flights to and from South Africa next year, using new Boeing 777 aircraft which it has on order. The airline withdrew from the route at the beginning of this year. According to general manager in South Africa, Trevor Henry, it was never intended to cease SA flights altogether. A shortage of long-distance aircraft forced the move, with available capacity allocated to northern hemisphere routes. Local cargo capacity to Europe was decimated when Alitalia withdrew its six-flights-a-week service, Austrian Airlines and Sabena pulled out, and TAP, the Portuguese carrier, decided to reroute most of its flights to Maputo. Henry says it is possible Alitalia will resume flights to South Africa as early as next March when all airline timetables change, but he thought that October 2002 was the more likely restart period.
