Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe has welcomed its first long-haul service and also its first by a European carrier. The Eurowings Discover operation isn't non-stop – that'd be excessive and unrealistic – but rather is direct, with a brief stop in Namibia in both directions.The launch of iconic Victoria Falls was one of many new routes by Eurowings Discover at the start of the aviation summer season. And later this year, the carrier, part of the Lufthansa Group, will begin service to Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport, the gateway to one of the world's best-known and largest national parks.The brand-new route to Zimbabwe's tourist hotspot comes very soon after FastJet commenced Kruger to Victoria Falls, the first time the airport-pair has ever been served.
Frankfurt to Victoria Falls
Eurowings Discover's flight from Frankfurt to Victoria Falls, via Windhoek, departed on March 29th, arriving the next day. The route operates southbound on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and returns northbound on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. It mainly uses 283-seat A330-300s, the airline's primary widebody.
The schedule is as follows, with all times local. The last flight from Zimbabwe is on November 13th. It'll be replaced by the new Frankfurt-Windhoek-Kruger service.
- Frankfurt to Windhoek: 4Y138, 21:55-08:00+1
- Windhoek to Victoria Falls: 4Y138, 09:15-11:15
- Victoria Falls to Windhoek: 4Y139, 15:05-17:15
- Windhoek to Victoria Falls: 4Y139, 19:00-05:35+1
To celebrate, there was cake depicting wild animals, the Falls, each country's flags, and the aircraft. While I love cake, even more exciting was the fly-by at Victoria Falls Airport and then a fly-past, at about 8,000 feet and 220 knots, of the famous Falls, before landing.
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Why Frankfurt?
You'd be forgiven for thinking it was a way of utilizing aircraft that would otherwise sit on the ground all day in Namibia, and to a degree that's true. It's also in response to the 'experimentation' of routes during the pandemic and to higher demand for new vacation offerings. Eurowings Discover was, after all, created to target markets unsuitable for Lufthansa itself.
More than that, booking data shows that Frankfurt was second only to London Heathrow for passengers traveling to/from Victoria Falls in 2019. The volume wasn't large (barely 10,000), but traffic should rise from the new, direct operation.
Until now, passengers traveling from Europe or beyond were limited to connecting in Johannesburg, Nairobi, or Addis Ababa. They can now also transit in Frankfurt, connecting from Lufthansa to Eurowings Discover on one ticket.
The longest route was with Ethiopian
As you'd expect, nearly nine in every ten departures from Victoria Falls in April are domestic and to neighboring South Africa and Botswana. Until Eurowings Discover arrived with its 5,641-mile (9,079km) link to Germany, the longest route was Ethiopian Airlines to Addis Ababa.
Like many intra-Africa services, Ethiopian serves Victoria Falls triangularly. ET829 leaves Addis Ababa four days a week and operates non-stop to the Zimbabwe destination. After a 45-minute turn, it departs for Gaborone, Botswana, 444 miles (715km) due south before returning to Addis. In all, Victoria Falls-Gaborne-Addis has a block time of nearly eight hours.
While Eurowings Discover is obviously the longest route overall, Ethiopian's Addis-Victoria Falls remains the longest non-stop.
What are your thoughts about it all? Let us know in the comments.