Why are direct Cape Town flights so expensive?

[Rastafanny]

Tickets are about £900 return in economy. £1,700 in premium economy. Yes it’s an 11 hour flight but I recently flew directly to LA for £480.

Airlines have to pay the countries they fly over, it pays for things like ATC and radar etc.

Flying to LA you only fly over a bit of the UK the the USA.

It’s a supply and demand thing. There are less flights to Cape Town than there are to the big US cities. And it’s a popular destination especially in the UK wintertime - as the weather is beautiful and there’s not much of a time difference. My DH is a long haul pilot - it’s not one of his current routes but he (and we) used to go a lot.

Cape Town is one of the few routes BA does that actually sells out. It isn't a very business heavy route either, so it is mainly a leisure route. Cape Town is especially popular with brits at the moment due to the exchange rate. It is comparably priced with places like Bangkok.

It’s a leisure route with high demand. You can fly to Joburg much cheaper and pick up a cheap internal flight?

I went Turkish airways to Cape Town and had 3 days in Istanbul as a stop-over for about £500 return. I loved the stop over.