British Airways is celebrating the 80th anniversary of its services to Cape Town.

Speaking at a media briefing in Cape Town, BA’s strategic commercial development manager, Daniel Bainbridge, said the first service from London to Cape Town landed on January 20, 1932. It was a biplane carrying mail and was operated by Imperial Airways, a predecessor to BA. Three months later, the first passengers flew between the two cities. Their journey was daunting and long. It took 10 days and included travelling on a Handley Page HP42 aircraft, on a train, on a Kent Flying Boat, an Armstrong Whitworth Argosy, on a Calcutta Flying Boat and finally on a De Havilland DH66 Hercules. In 1938 the service was increased to two flights a week and in 1939 the flight time was cut to just four-and-a-half days.

During World War II the direct route over Europe was cut and Imperial Airways’ successor, BOAC, began a weekly ‘Horseshoe’ route from Durban to Sydney via Cairo and Karachi. A few months later a flying boat service linked Poole and Lagos as part of the route across central Africa to Durban.

After the war, BOAC introduced the world’s first commercial passenger jet service in 1952 when a BOAC Comet flew from London to Johannesburg via Rome, Beirut, Khartoum and Livingstone. It did not continue to Cape Town but the 23-hour journey nearly halved the previous travel time.

The advent of jet services in the 70s brought long-haul leisure travel. BA started operating a direct Boeing 747 service to Cape Town in 1984 and increased these to two flights a week in 1990.

Post democracy, Cape Town really began to feature as an international tourist destination and the airline began an often frustrating campaign for more capacity to the Mother City, governed by the regular renegotiation of bilateral air services agreement between the UK and South Africa. In 2006 it was eventually awarded double-daily services to the city over the busy summer season. Today it operates two daily services offering nearly 5 000 seats a week each way and carrying more than 1300 people every day during the SA summer, reverting to a daily service in the SA winter when there is less demand.

To celebrate the occasion, the airline is offering special fares from the Mother City to several of its international destinations.

The sale runs until February 12 for outbound travel between January 16 and June 21 this year. Prices to London and other UK destinations start from R8 764 and to European cities from R8 418. Fares to the US are from R12 803 and to Canada from R13 329.