SA Airlink is filling the gap left by last month's collapse of Sun Air, with the launch of a service between Cape Town International airport and Lanseria airport on May 3.
The privately owned airline, in which SAA has a 10 percent stake, will put on four return flights each weekday using its 37-seat Embraer jets. The service is aimed mainly at business travellers, with early morning flights at 6.15am from Lanseria and 6am from Cape Town. There will be one flight on Saturdays and three on Sundays.
Rodger Foster, the chief executive of SA Airlink, said Sun Air, although unprofitable, had attracted 7 000 passengers in a number of months. SA Airlink, with smaller planes, needed only 4 500 passengers a month to be profitable.
Foster said a survey had shown that 75 percent of respondents in Johannesburg's northern suburbs and areas such as Centurion, Midrand, the West Rand, Brits and Thabazimbi would find Lanseria more convenient than a long drive to Johannesburg International.
Lanseria, which is privately owned, is carrying out a R100 million upgrade and extension programme, including lengthening and widening its runways.
Errol Friedmann, a director of Grand Central Airport, said this week that the Midrand airfield would have been more conveniently situated than Lanseria for SA Airlink's new service.
But Foster said Grand Central had no facilities for instrument landing in bad weather, which was "essential for a scheduled airline". Lanseria was an all-weather airport, situated well away from the crowded airspace near Johannesburg International and 300m lower than Grand Central.