Last Tango In London?

After my trip to Poland last month for the Euros, my girlfriend has been making noises about maybe hopping over to London to catch some of the Olympic fever! I really don't know if she can get time off work or if we can manage to afford the trip just yet, but I decided to take a look around and see if I was able to price up a few cheap flights to London. During my research I came across a blog which was reporting that SAA are looking at dropping their London to Cape Town route because it is not profitable. Thankfully for us they are still (at the moment anyway) running the London to Johannesburg route, so if we are able to swing it we would still be able to get a direct flight to the UK.

It seems like such a shame because I know South African Tourism are putting a huge amount of effort into promoting our nation as a tourist hub. However, it seems that our visitors are no longer coming to South Africa from the United Kingdom or from North America. The focus is now very much on Asian visitors especially those from India and China. It seems that the main reason why the London to Cape Town route was dropped was to do with the high Air Passenger Duty being charged on flights coming here from the UK, this has led to a decline in the number of travellers and because of soaring fuel prices, the airlines just cannot afford to keep the flights running without passenger demand. It's sad in a way. People think oh it doesn't affect us, but it does. Think about it logically, if they aren't flying here from London, that means that they are not flying back either.