Air Seychelles drops underperforming Victoria to Dar es Salaam route

After fourteen months of two flights per week between Seychelles’
capital of Victoria and the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam, Air
Seychelles has dropped the route under grounds of underperformance.

The national airline of the Republic of Seychelles will stop its
flights between Victoria Mahe and Dar es Salaam on March 12 this year,
ending its 14 months of flights between the two cities. The airline had as well, announced an addition of a fourth nonstop flight to Johannesburg in South Africa as of March 19, just a week after cancellation of Tanzanian scheduled flights.

In its media statement, Air Seychelles said that guests booked to fly
between Dar es Salaam and Victoria to other destinations after that
date will be accommodated on other flights.

“Twice a week Dar es Salaam service did not deliver the expected
inbound guest benefit to Seychelles, therefore, after careful
consideration, the decision has been taken to reassign our assets
elsewhere where they will bring increased benefits,” the airline’s
chief executive, Roy Kinnear said.

The Seychelles’ national airline is discontinuing its services to Dar
es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania, but will add another weekly
flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, the company said, quoting its
chief executive.

“This new service will reinforce the traffic flows between Seychelles
and South Africa, one of the strongest source markets of tourism for
the archipelago, with more than 13,000 arrivals last year, and a
popular holiday and shopping destination for Seychellois,” Kinnear
said.

The fourth flight to Johannesburg will be operated on Saturdays on an
Airbus A320 aircraft and will increase weekly seat capacity by 19 percent, Kinnear said.

The highest number of visitors to Seychelles from the African
continent comes from South Africa, which sent 13,500 visitors to the
island nation in 2015.

The island nation of Seychelles in the western Indian Ocean relies
heavily on tourism, the top pillar of its economy, and has been working towards becoming the hub for trade between African countries.

Kinnear said Air Seychelles has a strong mandate to be a profitable
airline and will continue to evaluate regional network opportunities
to capture traffic flows and meet market demand in the Indian Ocean.

Air Seychelles launched its services to Dar es Salaam on December 2,
2014 using an Airbus A320 airplane with a capacity of 120 seats in its
economy class and 16 in business class and were operated every Sunday
and Tuesday.

Air Seychelles was established in 1978 and began long-haul service in
1983. The airline currently offers international flights to Abu Dhabi,
Antananarivo, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg, Mauritius, Mumbai, and
Paris. Air Seychelles also offers more than 200 domestic scheduled
flights a week throughout the archipelago, including domestic charter
services.

As the national airline of the Republic of Seychelles, Air Seychelles
is a pillar of tourism, the island nation’s strongest and growing
economic sector. The airline maintains a strategic partnership with
Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates and
40 percent stakeholder.