Flying to South Africa

General Information

South Africa has countless airfields and around twenty airports with scheduled flights, including three (Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban) with truly international status. Given the country's size and layout, air travel is logically well-developed, even though the number of carriers has decreased in recent years. Moreover, South Africa—primarily through Johannesburg—serves as the international hub for much of southern Africa. Many European and other passengers heading to neighboring countries transit here before reaching their final destination.

OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg handles by far the most traffic. The city also has two smaller secondary airports and sees nearly 20 million passengers annually, making Tambo the second-busiest airport in Africa after Lagos. Flights from around the world and the presence of the national carrier, South African Airways, which uses it as a hub—as do other local airlines—underpin this success.

Far behind Johannesburg, Cape Town has the country's second-largest airport (11 million passengers in 2025). Next are Durban (5 million), Port Elizabeth (1.5 million), East London (1 million), and George Airport in the Western Cape province (850,000) for airports exceeding 500,000 passengers per year.

Local Airlines

Excluding charter-only companies and small carriers offering on-demand flights, particularly for safaris, South Africa now has just five airlines bearing its colors.

Airlink: Based in Johannesburg with a secondary hub in Cape Town, the airline specializes in domestic routes and flights to neighboring countries, covering over forty airports in total.

Cemair: Serves around fifteen South African and nearby cities, all connecting to Johannesburg.

FlySafair: A low-cost airline launched in 2013, focusing primarily on domestic routes with a small network of around a dozen regional cities.

LIFT: A low-cost carrier founded in 2020, offering a few domestic flights and routes to Réunion from Johannesburg.

South African Airways: The national airline, based in Johannesburg. After financial difficulties, it now serves only around twenty cities on the continent, plus Perth (Australia) and São Paulo (Brazil).

From France and Europe

Paris-Charles de Gaulle is connected by Air France to Johannesburg with a direct flight of 10h30, and seasonally to Cape Town. Beyond this, there are no other direct routes (except for a Réunion-Johannesburg flight with Air Austral).

As a result, most flights from France to these cities involve connections. Options include European airlines (KLM, Lufthansa, Swiss, Turkish, British Airways) operating from their usual hubs, major Middle Eastern carriers, and African airlines that don’t require excessive detours or extended travel times, such as Air Algérie, Ethiopian Airlines, or Kenya Airways. Often, the latter two categories are more affordable than European carriers. Expect to pay between 600 and 800 € round trip on average.

From the Rest of Africa and Beyond

South Africa is the air travel crossroads for much of southern Africa. This means Johannesburg and Cape Town have direct flights to and from most other African countries via multiple airlines. Additionally, there are a few routes to the Americas (Brazil, USA), Asia (China, Singapore), and Australia (Perth and Sydney).