Staff Writer
Two of Sub-Saharan Africa’s strongest unserved routes still have no direct flights between Johannesburg and Mumbai, and Brussels and Cape Town.
Both appear in the Airbus Exploring the Horizons study among high-demand corridors where passengers continue to route through a third city because no carrier has yet launched a service.
Some of the continent’s connectivity gaps have narrowed over the past year. Qantas addedPerth to Johannesburg, Edelweiss introduced its A350 service to Windhoek, Air Congo announced a Brussels link to Kinshasa, and Ethiopian secured approval to serve Mauritius.
If those routes can move from proposal to operation, why do others with similarly strong
demand remains unserved?
That question sat at the centre of a discussion at AviaDev Africa 2026 in Gaborone, the continent’s main route development forum, where airlines, airports and tourism bodies meet to build new air links. It was chaired by Natalia Rosa, project lead at the Southern AfricaTourism Alliance (SATA).
The panel agreed that none of the stakeholders can make a route work alone. Airports need traffic, tourism boards need visitors and airlines need confidence that travellers have a
reason to come.
Rosa described it as a relationship, but as Keira Langford-Johnson, business development director at Proflight Zambia, pointed out, not an equal one.
The airline carries the risk, committing aircraft, crew and operating costs long before it knows
whether demand will materialise.
Rupert Kraus of Discover Airlines, part of the Lufthansa Group, described a similar approach. Passenger numbers alone are rarely enough.
He wants to see broader indicators of growth: hotels being developed, cargo volumes increasing and new industries investing in a destination.
With a limited fleet and a growing list of potential destinations competing for capacity, airlines need confidence that a market can support service over the long term rather than generate short bursts of demand.
Langford-Johnson illustrated the point with three of ProflightZambia’s recent routes into Livingstone, Maun and Windhoek, all of which emerged from conversations at AviaDev.
None were obvious additions to the network, and Proflight does not launch new routes lightly.
What changed was the preparation. Airport authorities, tourism boards and regulators arrived with a 72-page business case covering demand, market potential, operating costs and demographics. When information was missing, the airline asked for it and the partners supplied it.
As Tatamo Rakotozafy, head of aeronautical activities at Ravinala Airports, explained, tourism authorities, airports and governments often approach route development with different priorities and measures of success.
The route is more likely to move forward when stakeholders can align around a shared economic objective. That common purpose becomes especially important when political priorities change or commercial pressures emerge.
One event could supply exactly the evidence airlines keep asking for. The 2027 T20 Cricket World Cup, shared by South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, is expected to move more than 340 000 people across the three countries.
Bronwen Auret, chief quality assurance officer at South African Tourism, acknowledged that creating that level of coordination requires effort well beyond the tourism sector.
The tournament, however, provides a practical opportunity to bring together air access planning, tourism promotion and regional cooperation around a single event.
