The new direct route, serviced by United Airlines, holds great potential for the Mother City with an additional 24 000 inbound passengers from New York. Travellers from the United States will grow by an estimated 20%, and about 900 jobs will be created during the first year.

The direct flights will also contribute to an approximate R421 million boost in tourism spend by 2021.

This is great news for Cape Town and its residents. Our tourism sector supports 300 000 jobs, and we are excited about its growth prospects. As the first citizen of Cape Town, it was an honour to welcome the maiden direct flight from New York to our beautiful city yesterday.

The aviation economy is a key driver of growth through tourism and trade. In supporting this objective, the City provides funding to the Air Access Initiative which is mandated to expand current flight routes, and to secure new routes to boost tourism and trade.

Since its launch in 2015, this initiative contributed to the success of securing 16 new routes, 22 route expansions, and increased the international seat capacity to 1,5 million two-way seats.

‘The priority for the past year has been to position my portfolio as the growth directorate of the City. We focus our energy on attracting investment which creates jobs, and leads to economic growth. My department’s strategy is to connect Cape Town with key destinations in Africa, and globally to attract more tourism and trade opportunities,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Opportunities and Asset Management, Alderman James Vos.

‘I look forward to working even harder in 2020, and to grow the aviation economy, increase business and leisure tourism, connect Cape Town to more countries and export more proudly Cape Town products to the rest of the world in collaboration with our strategic business partners,’ added Alderman Vos.

The shared marketing agreement between Cape Town Tourism and the New York tourism body, NYC & Company, increases the visibility of Cape Town as a global destination and ensure that we continue to be the go-to city on the African continent and globally for business, trade, and tourism.