Speaking to Routes in mid-November, Cape Town Air Access project manager Paul van den Brink struck an upbeat tone, explaining how carriers were returning to South Africa and adding more domestic and international frequencies. "We're confident of a good winter-our traditional peak season-and an even stronger 2022-23 winter," he said at the time. "South Africa is an interesting opportunity right now because much of our traditional competition, such as Thailand and Australia and some of Latin America, have not been open for business." Fast forward just a few weeks and the picture had changed markedly. While Cape Town was expecting to recover to between 60% and 70% of 2019 capacity levels this winter-up from 30% during the summer-the emergence of the COVID-19 Omicron variant in South Africa saw the shutters being pulled down on the country's air access around the world.
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