Airlink (South Africa) (4Z, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) has announced it will suspend flights to and from Pretoria Wonderboom Wonderboom Airport citing poor profitability on its only route - a 4x daily return service to Cape Town International using ARJ-85 and E135 equipment.
Airlink is currently the South African capital gateway's only large scale scheduled commercial service. It began operating the route to Cape Town in August 2015 catering to government as well as private sector business and leisure travel.
“This was not a decision taken lightly, but after almost three years, the route has not developed as we expected it would and in order to stem losses, we will suspend services from May 8, 2018.
“Sadly, the route has not become profitable, despite our collaborative best efforts – including significant marketing initiatives by the City of Tshwane, to promote the connection,” Airlink CEO, Rodger Foster, said in a statement.
"The combination of operational constraints on the size of aircraft that can be used on the route and the poor state of the economy have not helped. A compounding factor has been Government’s understandable and commendable belt-tightening efforts, which include cut-backs in government-related travel."
Foster added that Airlink was not completely closing the door on the Pretoria-Cape Town link adding that it would continue to assess the situation.
