PRETORIA, March 30. /TASS/. The authorities of the Republic of South Africa (RSA) are ready to consider the requests from Russian airlines for flights to the African country’s cities and take a respective decision shortly, a source in South Africa’s transport ministry told TASS on Thursday.
"There is a division in our ministry that is involved in air service regulation, including issuance of licenses to foreign air carriers for flights to cities of the RSA," he said. "If respective requests are received from Russian carriers they will be considered shortly," the source added.
According to information provided by the transport ministry to TASS, the republic’s regulatory bodies have not yet received any requests from Russian airlines for direct flights between the cities of Russia and the republic. That said, South Africa’s embassy in Russia said in January that the launch of four direct flights per week from Russia to the republic by Nordwind Airlines was under consideration.
Head of the Russian Federal Agency for Air Transport Alexander Neradko said earlier on Thursday that Moscow might open air service with Myanmar, Mongolia, South Korea, South Africa, Algeria and a number of other countries this year.
There are currently no direct flights between Russia and South Africa.