fastjet to suspend Johannesburg/Victoria Falls flights

LOW cost pan-Africa airline, fastjet, will from  December 5, suspend flights on three routes including Johannesburg/Victoria Falls service, to contain costs.

Suspension of the Johannesburg/Victoria Falls flights comes as the airline will also stop flights between Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Entebe, Uganda as well as the Tanzanian capital city and Nairobi, Kenya.

fastjet started flights between Johannesburg and the resort town of Victoria falls in March citing strong demand by passengers and tour operators.

Flight services between OR Tambo International Airport and the Victoria Falls International Airport were being operated using the airline's modern Airbus A319 jet aircraft, which has a seating for up to 156 people.

fastjet earlier said that it believed that affordable air travel was key to continued growth of tourism between Zimbabwe and its southern neighbour.
Victoria Falls had long been established as a tourism draw card to the region.

The route between Victoria Falls and Johannesburg came less than two months after the low cost airline introduced flights between Harare and Victoria Falls, and its first international service from Harare to Johannesburg.

When launching the Johannesburg service the budget airline said it would fly twice a week on Fridays and Sundays with the flights taking a time of 1 hour 35 minutes.

But fastjet said it had suspended flights on the three routes in order to facilitate ongoing turnaround programme in pursuit of long term sustainable financial structures for its businesses in Tanzania and Zimbabwe.