CT-New York flights developing as planned

The plan by US carrier Delta Airlines to add flights between Cape Town and New York to its previous daily service from Johannesburg to Atlanta is developing as targeted, according to Bronwyn Cunningham, Cape Town branch manager of GSAfrica. And the original three flights a week schedule was actually increased to four a week before the take-off of the service on June 3, she told FTW. “It’s difficult at this stage to talk about the growth trend,” said Cunningham. “The exports from the Cape are predominantly perishables – like fish, flowers and lobsters – and the winter is the quiet season for those. But we are targeting growth over the next few months as perishable exports come into season.” However, GSAfrica’s perishable cargoes, added to general cargo like automotive components and catalytic converters for the US market, have already provided an adequate base load for each flight. Delta is flying the service out of Cape Town on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, using Boeing 767-400 aircraft, with a cargo capacity of about 11-tonnes a flight. Cunningham won’t be drawn on forecasting on-going growth. “The problem” she said, “is the current financial turmoil in the US, which has definitely already had an effect on exports out of SA.” The Cape flights are between Cape Town International Airport and New York’s JFK Airport, via Dakar, Senegal while the daily service flies from OR Tambo International Airport bound for Atlanta, Georgia, also with a technical stop at Dakar.