By Stephen Hickmore . 5th November 2020
Airlines are showing a marked increase in arrivals at ORT International airport in Johannesburg over the past two weeks.
Since lockdown moved to level one there has been a trickle of international flights arriving in South Africa. The red list of countries is adjusted every two weeks, now with 22 on the banned list.
“Today and over this weekend, we see arrivals from London, Singapore, Amsterdam, China as well as middle eastern countries.” says Hickmore “I have been studying the arrivals in Johannesburg for a few weeks and observe an increase from 195 flights last week to 224 flights this week”
The increases are due to South Africa being increasingly considered a safer COVID destination Internationally. As Europe go into second wave lockdowns, South Africa continues to keep the pandemic at a steady level.
We are clearly not out of the woods yet. It will be interesting to study the arrivals over the next few months. The tourism industry will benefit greatly from International arrivals. It is true that most of the flights are not at full capacity, but; we are encouraged by increased arrivals from London, Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam.
There are no flights arriving from Australia – not even via Doha or Dubai – The USA does not feature at all.
Stephen is a hospitality professional from Johannesburg South Africa. His career started with THF hotels in the UK and subsequently with the Southern Sun Hotel group in Johannesburg. Stephen’s first steps into entrepreneurship was Hickmore Recruitment / CareerMap, a leading supplier of Senior and Exec recruitment services. Stephen was a founder of Pple Hospitality (formerly HSC) the largest Hospitality Industry full-service outsourced staffing company in South Africa. In March 2020 Stephen became a director and owner of the Swiss Hotel School South Africa, which is now his full time endeavour. Stephen writes for a number of publications on food and hospitality industry matters, trends and opinions.
