Air travellers to and from East London can now enjoy a better complement of flights as FlySafair has updated its schedule.

Announced on Friday, FlySafair will now have six flights per day between OR Tambo and Cape Town International Airports.

Airports Company SA's spokesperson Senzeni Ndebele said said FlySafair started with eight scheduled flights between EL from Johannesburg and Cape Town.

“Now they [FlySafair] have introduced 23 flights per week with the easing of lockdown levels from 3 to 2 and the opening up of leisure travel,

“The airline will continue with increased frequencies between East London and Johannesburg, and East London and Cape Town and they will also resume the East London to Durban route,” Ndebele said.

Airlink will also now have two scheduled flights a day between East London and Johannesburg.

Ndebele said: “We are happy to see more and more people gaining confidence in both the airlines’ and airports’ safety measures that have been put in place and using flying as a preferred mode of transport.”

“We encourage all people who fly to please ensure that they follow all protocols at the airport and that they also complete their health declaration forms prior to arriving at the airport,” she said.

On Wednesday speaking to DispatchLIVE, FlySafair's chief marketing officer Kirby Gordon said the flight schedule would be updated though the airline was operating at 20% of normal capacity.

This after President Cyril Ramaphosa's announcement of the nation moving down to lockdown alert level 2 on Saturday, allowing interprovincial travel.

In July, transport minister Fikile Mbalula announced the reopening of three additional SA airports — namely East London, George and Kimberley.

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