Qatar Airways does U-turn on resuming flights from SA

Just days after reopening bookings for flights from six Southern African cities, Doha-based Qatar Airways has reissued travel advice saying it will not accept passengers travelling from these countries.

On December 10, the airline announced that it would resume outbound passenger services from Johannesburg and Cape Town from December 12 with two flights a day from Johannesburg and one from Cape Town.

The news, which tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu welcomed with an official statement on Friday, is said to have led to a rush of bookings.

While the airline did not issue an official statement on Sunday, its website noted that it will not be accepting passengers travelling from five of its Southern African destinations: SA, Angola, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

“However, we will continue to accept passengers for travel into these countries in line with current restrictions,” it said.

Flights have been suspended until December 31.

In a statement issued on Friday and subsequently published on the airline's Twitter feed, Sisulu welcomed the resumption of Qatar Airways and Air France flights to SA.

“We advocate global solidarity in the fight against the pandemic,” Sisulu said. “We will continue to call on all countries to follow the WHO [World Health Organisation] advice, to rescind all selective travel bans and reopen their borders to SA.”

Sisulu said the UK’s “rushed” announcement to place SA on its red list after the identification of the Omicron variant, and France putting SA on its scarlet-red list,  prompted other governments to follow suit. “This has wreaked havoc on existing and future business as SA enters its peak inbound international tourism period,” she said.  

Tourism spokesperson Mpumzi Zuzile told TimesLIVE the department could not comment until the airline’s decision was confirmed.

On Saturday, however, angry passengers took to Twitter to say the flights had been summarily cancelled as the airline did a U-turn on its decision.

The flight disruptions come as the Doha-based airline has been pushing to strengthen its presence in SA and across Africa despite the pandemic-related uncertainty that still surrounds the aviation industry’s recovery.

“I think there will be a lot more strategic alliances and partnerships in the period ahead, and [local airlines] can leverage and tap into our networks across the globe,” Hendrik du Preez, vice-president of Qatar Airways in Africa, told Business Day in an interview recently. 

In October last year, Qatar entered into a partnership with Gauteng-based regional airline Airlink. The partnership, referred to as an interline agreement, provides passengers with seamless connectivity, via Cape Town and Johannesburg, to more than 20 regional destinations in Southern Africa including Gqeberha in SA, Gaborone and Maun in Botswana, Tete in Mozambique and Lusaka in Zambia, as well as Harare and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.

An interline agreement generally means passengers only have to check in once for all the flights on the itinerary, and their luggage is then transferred from one airline to another, without their having to manually collect it and drop it off again.

According to the International Air Transport Association,  airlines use interline agreements to sell itineraries they would otherwise not be able to serve alone. Interline agreements are attractive to passengers as they benefit from a cost and convenience perspective. 

Interline fare agreements involve carriers agreeing on a single origin-to-destination price and then dividing the revenue between them. Such partnerships between airlines also mean the passenger can be issued one ticket with two flight segments. Airlines in such partnerships generally offer a highly competitive joint fare that attracts customers to their particular route.

Qatar’s flagship airline, which now operates more than 650 weekly flights to more than 90 destinations, has partnerships with six airlines or airline operators in SA including Comair, Safair, Cemair, Mango and SAA.

With TimesLIVE

phakathib@businesslive.co.za