South African Airways (SAA) has announced that it will launch its first-ever direct service between Cape Town and Mauritius in December.
The flight will launch on Tuesday, 9 December 2025, and will be a three-weekly service operating every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
There will be two flight times:
A temporary adjustment will be made between mid-January and mid-March 2026, when the service will operate twice weekly, in line with seasonal demand.
SAA said that services mark a strategic expansion for the group and its network, particularly for travellers in the Western Cape.
“Connecting Cape Town with Mauritius is a fascinating achievement that our team has been aspiring towards for quite some time,” it said.
“The introduction of this route demonstrates SAA’s role in promoting leisure travel across the region and supports the broader tourism objectives for both South Africa and Mauritius.”
SAA’s new flight will join a host of other new flights, local and international, opening up in South Africa in 2025 and 2026.
Low-cost carrier Flysafair recently announced a new flight route connecting Cape Town to Hoedspruit, Limpopo.
Flights will operate three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with the first flight departing on 2 October 2025.
The group said that the flight will enhance access to the central Kruger region and the wider Limpopo province, complementing the existing route to Mbombela.
In addition to FlySafair’s new flight, South Africa will also see new international flights this year, taking advantage of the holiday season.
Australian airline Qantas announced in May that it will reintroduce its route between Johannesburg and Perth later this year, with direct flights taking off in December 2025.
Qantas said that the new flights will provide South Africans with direct access to Perth and easy connections to Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide via the carrier’s Australian network.
Customers will also have access to a new one-stop option to New Zealand, with the airline also introducing a direct flight between Perth and Auckland from December.
Air France, meanwhile, is returning its seasonal direct flight between Cape Town and Paris for the upcoming summer season.
From 15 December 2025 to 12 January 2026, Air France will operate daily nonstop flights between Cape Town and Paris, just in time for South Africa’s summer season and Europe’s peak holiday period.
With KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Air France-KLM will offer up to 18 weekly flights to Cape Town and 32 flights per week to South Africa.
The new flight will open over 11,000 seats in each direction every week.
Issued on BusinessTech by Staff Writer | https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/833306/new-international-flight-launching-in-south-africa/
