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In another example of how Atlanta’s growing ties with Africa pays economic dividends, Delta Air Lines Inc. is projecting that its new flight to Cape Town, launched Saturday, will spur at least $75 million in annual economic impact.
And that’s the low end of the estimate that could double to $150 million when factoring in tourism, trade and other spinoff benefits generated when an airline links two cities that previously didn’t share direct connectivity.
Delta’s thrice-weekly flight from Atlanta to the scenic city in the Western Cape province of South Africa — known for its coastal vistas, wine country and colonial history as trading outposts first for the Duthc and later the British — brought to 10 the number of weekly flights Delta operates to South Africa from the U.S.
Two of its key routes are from Atlanta, including a nonstop Johannesburg flight that restarted in August after a hiatus during COVID-19.
The flight comes as international travel starts to recover after the pandemic, with most countries relaxing or scrapping entry restrictions and testing requirements.
That could be a boon for Georgia, where international travelers are a tiny sliver of the overall market but tend to spend much more heavily than domestic visitors. In 2019, the last year before the pandemic skewed the numbers, Georgia welcomed 1.4 million international visitors who spent nearly $2 billion in the state.
According a Delta piece on the South Africa’s economic ties with Georgia, visitors from the country contributed a $3.3 million impact on the state in 2021, a down year for international travel. Just 5.6 million international travelers passed through ATL in 2021, less than half of the 13 million envisioned when the airport’s international terminal opened 10 years ago. The vast majority (4.8 million) arrived or departed Delta, with most transferring through. (So far in 2022, 8.2 million international travelers have been registered at Hartsfield-Jackson, nearly doubling the numbers at this point in the year last year.)
By far a larger impact in the South Africa relationship is the $423 million in total trade with the state, including $136 million in Georgia exports, mainly of processed foods, transportation equipment, paper and chemicals.
Economic analyses are a core part of the push for any new route, as airlines need business traffic and cargo to maximize the revenue potential of the route. But intangibles also play a role, as Georgia economic development Commissioner Pat Wilson noted when speaking to Delta for its website posting.
Georgia has had a collaboration with the province of Western Cape through the Regional Leaders Summit, a global network of states and provinces that has shared best practices on governance and economic development for more than a decade.
“Partnerships and relationship-building are at the heart of everything we do in economic development,” Mr. Wilson said, congratulating Delta on a move he said would build upon an advantage Georgia has already enjoyed for years with direct links to South Africa. “We look forward to facilitating the ongoing connections and opportunity that this route will deliver, including travel, trade, and investment opportunities.”
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock noted in the release that he also supported the flight, saying it “solidifies Hartsfield-Jackson’s position as a leading gateway to the world, improves our nation’s access to Africa and will be an economic boon to the greater Atlanta region.”
Cape Town and Atlanta have also seen exchanges at the city level, with former Mayor Kasim Reed landing in hot water over the purchase of business class tickets to Cape Town — without a nonstop route — in 2019.
Controversy aside, the trip was focused on building ties between entrepreneurs and creatives, trading notes on urban resilience, sustainability and the tech industry.
Atlanta and South Africa also share a triangular human rights heritage. Mahatma Gandhi’s experiences of discrimination in Durban, South Africa, helped spur his nonviolent push to decolonize India, which in turn inspired Martin Luther King Jr. and then methods of the civil rights movement in the Southern U.S. Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists drew strength from MLK’s work as they fought South Africa’s system of institutionalized segregation in the latter half of the 20th century. Mr. Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island, near Cape Town, for 27 years before his release and subsequent ascent to the presidency.