Update on Air Mauritius Durban Route

 Further to last week’s news that Air Mauritius will be introducing flights to Durban, South Africa once again, the airline has announced that the 5th of July will be the start date of this reintroduction. The daily Johannesburg flight will be retained, but as of the 2nd of May, the Johannesburg night flight will fall away. “Despite the fact that our night flights will be suspended during low season periods, we would like to assure all passengers that supplementary midnight flights will be added during peak travel periods, to meet market demand,” said Carla da Silva, Air Mauritius Regional Manager, Southern Africa and Latin America. The current Cape Town schedule remains unchanged. The Durban flight will see an A319 departing at 12h10 and arriving in Mauritius at 18h00, whilst the return flight leaves at 09h00 and will arrive in Durban at 11h20. “During peak periods and holiday seasons, we will introduce additional capacity, to accommodate our partners, and where required, an equipment upgrade will be affected for group travel,” said da Silva. Air Mauritius cancelled the Durban route last year, with only seasonal flights taking place. But, according to the airline, the reintroduction of the route is due to “submissions from the market, government and other stakeholders, which meant that we re-assessed the situation and monitored our peak period flights results”.

Free Holiday Season W-Fi for Mango Flyers

G-Connect in-flight Wi-Fi will be available free of charge to Mango customers on all enabled flights between Durban and Johannesburg, in both directions. The airline’s Wi-Fi service was launched in May this year. The gratis period takes place during December, through to 31 January 2013. Mango expects to transport more than 75,000 customers on the Durban and Johannesburg route between 11 December and 31 January 2013. With an up-time of over 95% and average speeds of 1Mbs on enabled aircraft, the G-Connect In-Flight Wi-Fi service exceeds many terrestrial line speeds. Next year, Mango and G-Connect plan to introduce on-demand entertainment, live television and limited games across its In-Flight Wi-Fi network. Recently, Mango became the first South African airline to offer a booking and payment channel through its mobi site, with plans afoot to launch an iPad application soon.

Emirates Land 777-300ER in Durban

Emirates are now flying the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft to Durban. The new 354-seat aircraft introduces Emirates’ First Class cabin on the Durban route and boosts passenger capacity by close to 30%. Emirates, which previously operated the smaller capacity Airbus A330-200 aircraft on the Durban route, currently serves 22 passenger and cargo destinations across the African continent, after the addition of Zambia and Zimbabwe in February this year.

 The Boeing 777 offers eight luxurious private suites in First Class, 42 lie-flat beds in Business Class and 304 generously-sized Economy Class seats. All classes of the aircraft are equipped with Emirates’ ‘ice’ on-demand entertainment system with more than 1,200 channels. Customers can also look forward to gourmet food in all cabins. EK 776 departs Durban at 18h40, arriving in Dubai at 05h20 the next day. EK 775 departs Dubai at 10h25, arriving at King Shaka International Airport in Durban at 17h10.