Summary
- TAAG Angola is returning to the UK after many years.
- It will operate three weekly to London Gatwick using the Boeing 777-300ER.
- Transit passengers will be vital, with Cape Town, Johannesburg, Windhoek, and Durban (if it begins) being the most important.
TAAG Angola is expected to begin Luanda to London Gatwick, becoming Angola’s only UK service after British Airways ended London Heathrow flights in 2018. It comes as Ethiopian Airlines is set to resume Gatwick on November 17th after a 17-year absence, while Kenya Airways will serve Heathrow double daily every day for the first time. TAAG is the latest long-haul carrier to add Gatwick, partly due to Heathrow’s severe slot shortage at desirable times.
TAAG to Gatwick
The Angolan flag carrier is not a stranger to London, having previously served the UK capital. It is set to return on December 14th, although this may change. It comes a year after it launched Madrid, part of political and economic development.
Photo: Matheus Obst/Shutterstock
The 4,208-mile (6,773 km) Gatwick route will be TAAG’s second-longest service after Havana. It will run three weekly using the 293-seat Boeing 777-300ER. These have 12 fully flat first class seats, 56 fully flat business days, and 225 seats in regular economy. It will be one of only a tiny number of airlines at Gatwick to provide first class. Emirates also does, but not on all its flights.
What’s the schedule?
The full timetable is not known when writing, but it will become clear shortly, and I will update this article accordingly. However, I can piece it together from various sources. It appears that flight DT606 will depart from Luanda at 22:50 on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, arriving in Gatwick at 06:25+1.
Image: GCMap
As is typical for TAAG’s European operations, the assigned 777-300ER will remain in Gatwick all day, partly to drive connectivity over its small Angola hub. It is a similar set-up to Ethiopian, whose aircraft typically stay on the ground all day in Europe.
DT607 is believed to leave Gatwick at around 21:25 on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, meaning 15 hours on the ground, to arrive back early the following day. It would be even more costly if it simply left after a normal two-hour turnaround without competitive two-way connection opportunities.
Luanda’s #1 unserved European market
Analysis of booking data suggests that around 430,000 roundtrip point-to-point (P2P) passengers flew between Luanda and Europe in the first seven months of 2023. Obviously, the majority – around two-thirds – traveled to/from Portugal.
Photo: Matheus Obst/Shutterstock
As multiple carriers serve various European airports – Brussels, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Lisbon, Madrid, Paris CDG, Porto – it is unsurprising that London was Luanda’s largest unserved European market. Yet, with only around 13,000 P2P passengers, it was not large. Indeed, most European airlines flying to Angola do so on a one-stop terminator or triangular basis.
South Africa and Namibia key
Transit passengers will be vital for TAAG’s London operation. It will revolve around Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Windhoek, which collectively had ~470,000 London passengers in January-July 2023. TAAG hopes to launch Durban service, with London being its top long-haul market (~42,000 passengers in these seven months). However, TAAG’s service appears rather ‘different,’ to say the least.
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TAAG will benefit from the continued absence of SAA in London and the coming exit of Qatar Airways in Windhoek. It is this which is partly motivating Turkish Airlines to add the Namibian capital. Ethiopian does not serve Durban. While it previously did, it appears that it did not fit well enough into its flight wave structure.
What do you make of it all? Let us know in the comments.
Sources of information: SeanM on Twitter, Aeroroutes, Cirium, OAG, Flightradar24.com, ch-aviation.com, booking data