King Shaka International Airport celebrated today in welcoming Air Seychelles to Durban on their inaugural flight on March 30th commencing a new two-per-week service to Durban. Operating under flight code HM63, this flight will establish the second air link between Seychelles and South Africa after Johannesburg, where they fly five times weekly. It will be operated on an Airbus A320 aircraft that with two cabins split, offering 16 seats in business and 120 in economy class.

Terence Delomoney General Manager of King Shaka International said, “Today is a very significant day as it is now the 6th international airline that we have launched in the 18 months. This would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of our partners and stakeholders that include EDTEA, Dube Tradeport, Trade and Investment KZN, Durban Tourism, TKZN, ACSA and others to ensure that KZN and Durban is the destination of choice. We as KSIA are very proud to be associated with these strategic partners and will continue to work closely with to bring more direct flights to King Shaka International. We want to thank Air Seychelles for choosing Durban as a destination and we want to encourage you to work closely with us and our partners to maintain this important connection between Durban and Seychelles and certainly take advantage on the growing connecting routes the both destinations enjoy”.,

Delomoney continued, “I would like to take this opportunity of welcoming Air Seychelles to Durban and to mention that they are in great company as our airport has just been awarded the Best Regional Airport in Africa, Best Airport with under five million passengers a year and well as Best Airport Staff Excellence at the Skytrax 2017 World Airport Awards presented in Amsterdam recently. That is not all as our airport is now the second best airport in Africa through the ACI ASQ Awards and our airport also recently was positioned very well internationally as the 10th Most Punctual Airport in the world in our category by OAG Aviation Worldwide.”

Mr Hamish Erskine, CEO, Dube TradePort Corporation noted, “The KwaZulu-Natal Route Development Committee has been working tirelessly behind-the-scenes to secure the introduction of new regional and international air services to Durban’s King Shaka International Airport.  Strategically presenting data-driven business cases to airlines, we aim to show route planners, from around the world, the potential market that exists within Durban and the rest of KwaZulu-Natal.  We are always motivated when a new airline takes up our offer and commences a new route into Durban; we had been in talks with Air Seychelles for the last 12 months for them to put on this new non-stop route.

Travellers from Durban and KZN can now enjoy connecting to various other routes via Air Seychelles as they have expanded their partnership with Jet Airways by signing a codeshare agreement on domestic flights between Mumbai and nine cities in India: Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Cochin and Trivandrum. These will also be available for travellers flying out of Durban via Seychelles to India.

Alan Renaud, General Manager for Aeropolitical, Alliances and Public Affairs said: “We are delighted to begin serving the vibrant city of Durban with twice-weekly flights from Seychelles. Our route network now boasts air connections to one of the most popular cities on South Africa's coast, known for its Golden Mile beach and fantastic surfing, and we are confident it will attract strong leisure traffic and business traffic from across our network.”

Colin Naidoo, Senior Corporate Affairs Manager said, “This new route to the wonderful exotic islands on the Seychelles will give South Africans an opportunity to discover their world while allowing the people of Seychelles to see what we have to offer as a city, province and country. We do know that more than 10,000 travellers have already visited Seychelles from South Africa last year and with these network enhancements we are confident that this number will increase in 2017.This is an incredible opportunity to boost trade, tourism and bring our people and bilateral relations even closer together”.

Colin Naidoo
Senior Manager Corporate Affairs
King Shaka International Airport
Colin.naidoo@airports.co.za
Tel: 032 4366609


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Air Seychelles

Air Seychelles Flight Schedule:
Flight No. Origin Departs Destination Arrives Day Aircraft
HM63  Seychelles  09:25 Durban  12:50 Thursday, Saturday A320
HM62  Durban  13:45 Seychelles 21:05 Thursday, Saturday A320

*All departures and arrivals above are listed in local time.

Air Seychelles was established in 1978 and began long-haul service in 1983. The airline currently offers international flights to Abu Dhabi, Johannesburg and Mauritius, operated by its new A330-200 aircraft. Air Seychelles also offers more than 160 domestic scheduled flights a week throughout the archipelago, as well as domestic charter services. As the national airline of the Republic of Seychelles, Air Seychelles is a pillar of tourism, the island nation’s strongest and growing economic sector.

The Airline visions and mission is to be a profitable and high quality Airline and delivering to their guests a quality service with unique Creole warmth.

In 2012 and as part of a strategic partnership alliance, Etihad Airways acquired a 40 percent stake in Air Seychelles at a cost of $20 million. The deal also called for the Seychelles government to pump in another $20 million into Air Seychelles. Etihad also agreed to provide a shareholder loan of $25 million to cover the Airline cash needs and to fund the development of its network. The agreement also made for provision for a five-year management contract for Etihad Airways to see the implementation of strategic measures to encourage Air Seychelles’ long-term commercial growth.

In April 2014, Air Seychelles, announced a net profit of US$3 million for 2013, exceeding by 171 percent its profit of US$1.1 million reported in 2012. Revenue increased by 107 per cent to US$88.7 million (2012: US$42.8 million). The airline’s passenger numbers on its international network increased 100per cent to 195,857 (2012:97,576), while traffic on domestic services in 2013 increased nine per cent to 156,617 passengers.
For the future, it is the Airline plan to grow its operations, launch new routes, take delivery of new aircraft, expand the airline partnerships, hire more Seychellois, and bring in more travellers to the Seychelles.

Presently Air Seychelles has the following codeshare partners on its 5pw JNB service:

• Alitalia
• Jet Airways
• Etihad Airways
• Air Serbia
• South African Airways

All 5 of these partners will be code sharing on HM’s new 2pw DUR service from March 30, 2017 and in addition, because of their new routes to Dusseldorf, airberlin will become their latest partner on both routes. So from March 30, 2017, the following partners will be code sharing on both Durban and Johannesburg:

• Airberlin
• Alitalia
• Jet Airways
• Etihad Airways
• Air Serbia
• South African Airways