“It can’t help but be good if it can reduce the time it takes to travel to Africa, and to travel within Africa, at a lower cost,” says Washington, DC-based Constituency for Africa President Melvin Foote about the new South African Airways (SAA) and Kenya Airways (KQ) codeshare agreement. The agreement opens more destinations for seamless travel opportunities within the continent of Africa.

The code-sharing agreement will see each airline sell, under its own code, flights operated by each other; South African Airways or Kenya Airways. SAA’s customers will continue to have the ability to earn Voyager miles on these new codeshare flights. The deal enables travelers to combine flight segments and baggage on a single ticket.

The growth of the partnership will see addition of Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro, Juba, Douala, Lusaka, Ghana, and Nigeria subject to government approval as the airlines seek to offer more options for travelers within Africa.

The airlines expect the arrangement will facilitate trade, development, and tourism.

Johannesburg architect Linda Mvusi told Port of Harlem that her reservations about the agreement stem from Kenya Airways “US$333 million historic debt, secondly that Kenya’s own government refused to bail out KQ, and thirdly KQ’s nonexistent fee revenue stream when Kenya’s parliament blocked the airline from 'managing' Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.”

United Airlines also announced new direct flights between Washington Dulles Airport and Cape Town, becoming the first airline to provide nonstop roundtrip service from Washington, DC to South Africa. The U.S. Department of Transportation granted the airline three weekly direct flights, which will commence on November 17, 2022.

On the heels of the United announce net, Business Insider - South Africa magazine reported that South Africa’s primary source market for tourists in 2021 was the United States, with almost 72,000 Americans having arrived by December. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, European visitors accounted for roughly 60% of overseas tourists entering South Africa annually. Tourists from North America – the US and Canada combined – accounted for just 17%.