Cheap Flights in South Africa

South Africa has a number of airlines flying between both the major airports and some of the smaller ones, offering a choice of classes ranging from first-class to no-frills low cost flights. There are a number of airports throughout South Africa, including a number of privately managed airports in the outlying areas.

South Africa's principal airports are operated and managed by the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa), including the three major international airports at Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. The other seven are domestic airports in Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth, East London, George, Kimberley, Upington and Pilanesberg. All other airports are privately managed and are not serviced by all the available airlines in South Africa.

South African Airways and British Airways (operated by Comair) offer economy, business and first class flights between all the major cities and to some of the smaller ones including Mthatha, Polokwane, Richards Bay, and Maseru. For low-cost flights, passengers can make use of airlines including Kulula.com, 1time and Mango Airlines. These airlines offer cheap flights on the more popular routes between Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Nelspruit and George.

Kulula offers single-class flights between Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport and Cape Town, Durban, George, Port Elizabeth, and Nelspruit as well as flights from Lanseria Airport to Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and George. 1Time Airline offers return flights from Johannesburg to Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, East London and George.

These low cost airlines offer no-frills flights, with limited in-flight services and do not include complimentary meals and beverages on their flights, but do offer qualified and friendly personnel to service their passengers needs and beverages and snacks can be purchased on board.

All the domestic flight operators offer online booking services, with payment by credit card or directly into the relevant bank account with Mango Airlines, SAA and British Airways offering the additional convenience of purchasing tickets at the money market counters at Checkers and Shoprite supermarkets nationwide.

There are a number of independent web-based agencies offering pricing comparisons between the airlines, and online booking services. These include travelstart.co.za, ifly.co.za and cheapfares.co.za. Passengers can search the site for available flights on their preferred dates and compare prices from airlines offering flights on those dates.

Flights on major routes to the major international airports are scheduled daily with a good number of flights available, while flights on lesser routes are scheduled intermittently with fewer flights available and offered by fewer airlines. The low cost airlines do not all cover the lesser routes and do not include the privately run airports such as Richards Bay and Mthatha.

When searching for cheap flights in South Africa, travellers can also take advantage of the additional services offered by the low cost airlines on their websites including accommodation, car hire and package holidays. These airlines regularly run additional specials including early booking discounts, and last minute discounts on flights which can be found on their websites.

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