British Airways plans to add two extra weekly flights from London Gatwick (LGW) to Cape Town (CPT), starting January 10, 2021, and three more flights between London Heathrow and CPT running from the March 20 to April 10 2020.

London’s winter season is the perfect time to take advantage of Cape Town’s warm temperatures in the first three months of the year.

“In total we’ll be offering 36 flights a week between the UK and South Africa. In addition to the 19 Cape Town services, we also fly double-daily to Johannesburg using our largest aircraft, the A380. We also fly direct between London and Durban three times a week,” says Cristina Graham, British Airways Corporate Commercial Manager for Southern Africa. The additional Gatwick services will use Boeing 777-200 aircraft.

The decision was welcomed by Cape Town officials. “Connecting Cape Town to more cities and countries in Africa and globally is part of the City's strategy to increase connections so that we can increase business and leisure tourism,” said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Opportunities and Asset Management, James Vos.

He said the city would be in contact with the airline and was happy to share destination marketing content. “We have developed a suite of promotional material, including videos, brochures and a USB Toolkit that position Cape Town as a preferred destination for travel, events and investment.”

Adam Carson, British Airways’ Managing Director at London Gatwick, said: “We know our customers crave some winter warmth as these are incredibly popular destinations. To make it even easier to get there we’re increasing the number of flights to St Lucia, Cancun and Cape Town from London Gatwick and we’ve put them on days that work well to maximise travellers’ time and annual leave.”

British Airways is the only airline to offer direct services between London and the Mother City all year round.