Jet Airways on Friday announced that it would commence daily non-stop flights from Mumbai to Johannesburg, South Africa, from April 14. This new international route marks the first time that Jet is adding destinations to Africa on its international route network. In fact, the Jet service will be the first by a private airline between India and South Africa. Only South African Airways offers four flights weekly between India and South Africa.

Johannesburg will be the 23rd destination in the airline’s international network. The daily flight will depart Mumbai at 0205 hours arriving at Johannesburg at 0735 hours and on the return leg will depart Johannesburg at 1100 and arrive at 2330 hours.The A330-200 is configured in two classes with 30 seats in business and 190 in economy. Return fares start at Rs.35,595 for economy and Rs.1.16 lakh for business.

Addressing media, Jet Airways Chief Commercial Officer Sudhir Raghavan said we remain cautiously optimistic about a revival in international traffic. The seat factor for Jet on international routes has reached 82-83 per cent and we are seeing strong demand in economy and business class traffic.
The airline was mulling a fare hike this quarter to offset rising fuel prices. Fares would rise by 10-15 per cent in the April-June period over January-March,” Jet Airways Vice-President Revenue Management Raj Sivakumar told reporters here. However, the airline had recorded a load-factor of 80 per cent on its international routes while its domestic flights clocked a 70 per cent load-factor in the last quarter, he said.The Naresh Goyal-led airline planned only a minimal expansion in the current fiacal, its Executive Director Saroj Datta said.