Air Mauritius to offer overnight flights from South Africa
Air Mauritius is set to resume non-stop flights from Cape Town to Mauritius in November this year.
In a social media post on Tuesday (19 July), the airline announced that it would be offering two weekly flights leaving at night (22h05) from Cape Town and arriving in the early morning in Mauritius (05h10).
Air Mauritius currently offers flights from Johannesburg’s OR Tambo with a one-way economy class ticket costing around R5,500. FlySafair earlier this year also extended its route capacity to include twice-weekly flights from OR Tambo to Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport.
The country’s tourism industry being the main driver of their economy, suffered from the Covid-19 pandemic; however, the country has eased a number of Covid-related restrictions in response to its vaccination campaign.
People travelling to Mauritius are still required to wear masks in some public settings like hospitals or on public transport, but tests for vaccinated and unvaccinated passengers are no longer required.
Between January and May of this year, Mauritius welcomed 33,601 passengers from South Africa, recovering to more than 80% of pre-pandemic levels, reported the Mauritian Tourism Promotion Agency (MTPA).
“It is encouraging to see the arrivals numbers from South Africa to Mauritius for the first five months of 2022 rivalling those of pre-Covid 2019, and we expect this positive and upward trend to continue through the year and into 2023,” said Arvind Bundhun, director of the MTPA earlier this month.
Read: Ramaphosa to announce load shedding ‘package’ for South Africa