{"id":627622,"date":"2022-09-22T11:27:16","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T09:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=627622"},"modified":"2022-09-22T11:27:16","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T09:27:16","slug":"lift-launches-new-route-expands-flights-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/627622\/lift-launches-new-route-expands-flights-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Lift launches new route, expands flights in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Domestic airline Lift has added a new route to its flights, with passengers now able to book flights <strong>between Johannesburg and Durban<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the announcement, Lift only serviced flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is our first step in connecting the popular \u2018Golden Triangle\u2019 between Johannesburg &#8211; Durban &#8211; Cape Town,&#8221; said Lift.<\/p>\n<p>Bookings for the Johannesburg &#8211; Durban route are set to go live on Thursday (22 September), and the first flights will start operating on 26 October with three return flights per day, it said.<\/p>\n<p>Along with the Joburg-Durban flight, the airline expects to announce flights for the Cape Town-Durban route in the coming weeks, with flights expected to operate from November 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Lift will also increase its flight frequency between Johannesburg and Cape Town by up to 14 flights per day.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u2019re also adding four aircraft to our fleet, which has been done using flexible capacity and can easily be increased or decreased based on demand,&#8221; said Jonathan Ayache, Lift&#8217;s CEO.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s been a challenging two years, but looking ahead, we expect the market to recover to pre-pandemic levels in late 2023, and for the second year in a row, we will be doubling our seat capacity,\u201d Ayache.<\/p>\n<p>Lift has not been alone in expanding flight capacity and routes, with other airlines such as FlySafair and Qantas opening new routes within South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>FlySafair CEO Elmar Conradie said the group added more flights at the start of September 2022, with even more flight capacity being launched in October.<\/p>\n<p>The group hopes to get additional planes in the sky by December \u2013 bringing three new planes in total \u2013 with further capacity coming in 2023.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"PgWSUyBfDK\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/626932\/5-new-flights-launching-in-south-africa\/\">5 new flights launching in South Africa<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;5 new flights launching in South Africa&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/626932\/5-new-flights-launching-in-south-africa\/embed\/#?secret=AtCE9IJDmp#?secret=PgWSUyBfDK\" data-secret=\"PgWSUyBfDK\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>South Africa&#8217;s domestic flight capacity has been in shambles since the closure of Comair wiped out approximately 40% of the local flight capacity from the market, leaving reaming airlines scrambling to meet demand.<\/p>\n<p>The liquidation significantly impacted flight availability and cost, leaving alternative airlines to compensate for the lost capacity. Flight ticket prices increased while seat capacity decreased.<\/p>\n<p>According to airlines, tickets with high demand for quick travel frequently fetch higher costs, in the R2,000 to R3,000 area. However, low-demand routes reserved well in advance are frequently less expensive \u2013 under R1,000<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/627536\/good-news-for-petrol-and-food-prices-in-south-africa-but-theres-a-catch\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Good news for petrol and food prices in South Africa \u2013 but there\u2019s a catch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Domestic airline LIFT has added a new route to its flights and is bringing in more planes &#8211; expanding into a market that has been suffering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":456040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26,8818],"class_list":["post-627622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline","tag-lift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627622"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":627652,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627622\/revisions\/627652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}