Originally Posted by
Sunbeater
Why do flights between South Africa and the UK cost so much more than flights between other places of equal distance, e.g. to USA? I have struggled to get my head around that for years! Can someone please explain? I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation!
It's the same for South America. In the recent sale the CW fare to GRU (11 hours) was £100 more than the CW fare to SYD (23 hours, 2 sectors).
BA only competes with TAM on that route (direct). If you are prepared to stopover in MAD/LIS/ROM/AMS etc you find fares around £1000 cheaper than the standard CW fare BA offers to GRU, year round.