Fly to St Helena Now!

The BBC has reported that the "virgin" flight to the new airport on the island of St Helena has landed safely. This is also described as the "first commercial flight". This is not strictly true; there was an inaugural flight in August which I reported on at the time, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/st-helena-airport-maiden-flight.html. However this is the first flight in which tickets were put onto the open market. One of the passengers was a Mr Ed Cropley and he Tweeted a photo of his boarding pass, see above (and https://twitter.com/edwardcropley). Some of the other seventy-seven passengers were Saints returning home, for the first time skipping the six-day sea voyage from Cape Town on the RMS; that must feel strange. SA Airlink once again used their new Embraer E190 aircraft for this flight. It took off from OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa at nine AM and stopped to refuel at Windhoek, Namibia before setting out over the Atlantic Ocean towards St Helena. It landed safely at 1.59 PM local time (2.59 PM BST), see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41620003. The plane will return to South Africa tomorrow afternoon. I hope the tourists enjoy themselves and the Saints find this new way of accessing the outside world useful. However, the concerns I've raised in this series have not eased. Regular flights will now follow this one. If you want to go to St Helena it is not cheap; prices start at £804 and this does not include travelling to South Africa first. Probably that price will come down over time, as is often the case. See here for details: https://flyairlink.com/destinations/flights-to-st-helena and: http://sthelenatourism.com/fly-st-helena-14-october-2017/.

See here for background: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/programme-212-podcast-st-helena-airport.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/st-helena-airport-first-military-flight.html.

And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/st-helena-airport-opens.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/debit-cards-on-st-helena.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/tristan-da-cunha-st-helena-plus.html.