Mango launches PE routes
2012-12-05 13:47
Cape Town - Low cost airline Mango launched its first flights ever to Port Elizabeth this morning.
The subsidiary of state-owned South African Airways (SAA) will initially operate daily return flights between Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth and Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.
The Johanneburg - Port Elizabeth route has been serviced only by SAA and Kulula/Comair and demand on the route is massive, especially over the festive season.
Mango says since opening for sales on the route less than 10 days ago, forward bookings have shown positive movement with expected load factors in the upper region of 80%.
Port Elizabeth is the second new airport in the Mango stable within 15 months after Mango started flying from Johannesburg second biggest airport, Lanseria in mid-2011.
"Flights to and from Nelson Mandela Bay marks the beginning of a new growth phase for Mango," says CEO Nico Bezuidenhout. The airline plans to add several new routes, both domestic and regional, to its network over the next 24 months.
Mango Spokesperson Hein Kaizer says the airline has leased in one additional aircraft to help service the route.
"This brings Mango's total fleet to seven," says Kaizer.
Further good news is that the new routes have meant that Mango could employ the vast majority of 1Time's Port Elizabeth based airport staff recently retrenched after the liquidation of 1Time.
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