South African regional and domestic airline Airlink has announced that it is to introduce a direct flight between Cape Town, South Africa, and Gaborone, Botswana. The new service will commence on April 1, next year.

“As Botswana’s capital, Gaborone is an important regional destination for business with the city being home to thriving minerals, resources, automotive and tech sector companies and it hosts the Southern African Development Community headquarters,” highlighted Airlink CEO and MD Rodger Foster. “It is also an important leisure tourism gateway to many game lodges and the Gaborone Game Reserve. Alongside Cape Town’s economic expansion, we are seeing rising demand for travel between the two cities and Airlink is ideally placed to connect them with a convenient direct service. It also enables customers travelling via Cape Town on our various international partner airlines to seamlessly connect onwards to Gaborone on a single ticket and vice versa for customers travelling from Gaborone.”

The service will be operated once a day, each way, on three days each week – Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The flights from Cape Town will be coded 4Z 364 and leave the Mother City at 10:50, arriving at Gaborone at 13:00. The return flights will be coded 4Z 365 and leave the Botswanan capital at 13:45, landing at Cape Town at 16:00.

The airline will operate the route using its Embraer ERJ140 regional jets. These can carry up to 44 passengers, and give passengers the option of aisle seats or window seats, not having any middle seats (no Airlink airliner has middle seats).

Economy class passengers will have a free 20 kg check-in baggage allowance and a 15 kg sporting equipment allowance. On the flight, passengers will receive a complimentary light meal and refreshments.

Airlink was created in 1992 and now operates a fleet of more than 65 modern jet airliners. It operates a regional network across Southern and East Africa, including to Madagascar and to the South Atlantic island of St Helena, as well as a comprehensive domestic network.