Flights & getting to South Africa

South Africa is a long way south, but it’s an easy country to reach. It sits almost due south of Europe, so the time difference is tiny, and both of its big cities have direct flights from the major hubs. The flight is long, but a good one: most of it is overnight, and you step off into the same daylight you left.

There are two questions worth settling before you book: which city to fly into, and whether a direct flight is worth the premium over a one-stop. The answers depend a little on where you’re starting from, so this guide is split by region after a look at the gateways themselves.

The two main gateways

Almost every visitor arrives through one of two airports. Johannesburg (OR Tambo, JNB) is the country’s main hub and the busiest airport in Africa, with the widest choice of long-haul flights and the best onward connections, including the quick hop to the Kruger. Cape Town (CPT) is the other, smaller but growing fast, and the obvious choice if the Cape and the Garden Route are your focus. A third, Durban (King Shaka, DUR), takes very few long-haul flights but is an easy domestic connection for the KwaZulu-Natal coast.

A useful rule for a first trip: fly into one and out of the other. Land in Cape Town, tour west to east, and fly home from Johannesburg (or the reverse), and you avoid backtracking. The fare for an “open-jaw” ticket like this is usually close to a straight return.

Time zones are the easy part. South Africa runs on GMT+2 all year, with no daylight saving, so it’s one or two hours ahead of the UK and six or seven hours ahead of the US East Coast. Coming from Britain there’s effectively no jet lag at all.

From the United Kingdom

Britain has the best links to South Africa of any country outside Africa, and the gentlest arrival. London Heathrow has nonstop flights to both Cape Town and Johannesburg, flown by British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. Cape Town takes around eleven and a half to twelve and a half hours; Johannesburg is a touch under eleven. Both routes go overnight, leaving in the evening and landing in the morning, and with South Africa only an hour or two ahead you arrive ready for the day.

The catch is that the nonstops leave from Heathrow. From elsewhere in the UK, the simplest path is a connection through Heathrow, or a one-stop on a European or Gulf carrier from a regional airport. KLM (via Amsterdam), Lufthansa (via Frankfurt or Munich), Air France (via Paris) and Swiss (via Zurich) all feed both South African cities from regional UK airports, often for less than the Heathrow nonstop. The Gulf airlines, Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad, route through Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi, which adds hours but frequently undercuts the direct fare and serves Durban as well.

For most British travellers the choice comes down to the direct flight’s convenience against the saving on a one-stop. If you’re heading to the Cape and value the overnight hop with no jet lag, the Heathrow nonstop is hard to beat.

From the United States

The US is a longer haul, but the nonstop network has grown a lot in recent years. United flies nonstop from Newark (EWR) to Johannesburg daily and to Cape Town several times a week, and adds a Washington Dulles (IAD) to Cape Town service. Delta flies nonstop from its Atlanta (ATL) hub to Johannesburg daily and to Cape Town a few times a week, with extra Cape Town frequencies in the northern winter, which is South Africa’s summer and high season. These are among the longest flights in the world: reckon on fifteen to sixteen hours in the air.

If you’re not near Newark, Washington or Atlanta, or you want to spread the journey, a one-stop is often cheaper and barely longer door to door. The classic connections are through Europe (London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Paris) or the Gulf (Doha, Dubai, Istanbul on Turkish Airlines, or Addis Ababa on Ethiopian), all of which serve Johannesburg and Cape Town. A European stop also lets you break the trip with a night or two on the way.

The time difference from the East Coast is six or seven hours, so jet lag is real but manageable, and it tends to be kinder in this direction than coming home. Flying overnight and giving yourself an easy first day in Cape Town or Johannesburg is the simplest fix.

Direct or one-stop?

A nonstop flight is faster, simpler and easier on the body, and it usually costs more. A one-stop on a European or Gulf carrier adds two to five hours but can save a useful amount, opens up departures from more cities, and sometimes reaches Cape Town or Durban more cheaply than the direct route. There’s no single right answer: weigh the premium against your budget, the time you have, and how much the overnight-with-no-connection appeals.

One thing worth knowing: because Johannesburg has far more long-haul flights than Cape Town, fares to JNB are often lower, and adding a short domestic hop to Cape Town can come out cheaper than flying there direct.

When to book, and for the best fare

Prices follow South Africa’s seasons more than the calendar back home. The festive peak, mid-December to mid-January, is the country’s summer and its busiest, dearest window, especially to Cape Town. Book those dates months ahead. The shoulder seasons, roughly April–May and September–October, bring the best balance of weather, space and price. The dry winter (June–August) is high season for safari but can be quieter and cheaper for flights, since it’s low season on the coast.

A few habits help whatever your dates:

• Book long-haul two to five months out. Last-minute bargains to South Africa are rare; prices tend to climb as seats fill.
• Be flexible by a day or two. Midweek departures are usually cheaper than weekends, and shifting your dates around a holiday can cut the fare sharply.
• Compare nonstop against one-stop, and check the price of flying into Johannesburg with a separate domestic flight to Cape Town.
• Set a price alert and watch for a few weeks before you commit, so you know a good fare when you see one.

Getting around once you land

South Africa has a strong, cheap domestic network, which is what makes the “in one city, out the other” plan so easy. Airlink, FlySafair and Cemair connect Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) and the small airports near the Kruger and the Garden Route, with Johannesburg as the main hub. For most itineraries, though, the freedom of a self-drive is the real draw: good tarred roads, driving on the left as in the UK, and a rental car waiting at the airport.

In short: from Britain, the Heathrow nonstop to Cape Town or Johannesburg is about as easy as a long-haul gets, with no jet lag to speak of. From the States, the Newark and Atlanta nonstops have made the trip far simpler, while a stop in Europe or the Gulf keeps it flexible and often cheaper. Whichever you choose, fly into one city and out of the other, book a few months ahead, and the longest part of the journey will be behind you before you’ve finished the first film.