Review of CemAir flight from Johannesburg to Kimberley in Economy

SPECIAL, SENTIMENTAL & SLIGHTLY SHADY

Hello and welcome to another Flight Report!

This is FR number 2 of my South Africa trip and will cover my first domestic flight from Johannesburg to Kimberley. I have to be honest, I don't feel like Kimberley is really worth visiting if you're just here for a short trip, most people who visit are driving between Johannesburg and Cape Town and are just using it as a stop-off point. As for me? I knew I had to pay Kimberley a visit when I was planning this trip, mainly for personal reasons. 

I had about 4 hours in Johannesburg after stepping off my flight from Maputo, which was made shorter by the insanely long queue for immigration (all the European long-hauls arrive in the morning). Rather interestingly, I was talking to another tourist from the US and he told me that immigration was brought to a complete standstill with a power cut when he arrived (in the evening). Apparently load-shedding also applies to airports? Not sure what happened there but it was interesting hearing his 2 hour long nightmare experience at the airport. 

Anyway, as for price, I paid R‎2004 ($104/€98) for a single, which includes seat selection and checked baggage. 

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard. The CO2 output for this flight is:

JNB → KIM: 212kg
Total for 2024 (so far): 2054kg

video report

Here's the video report for this FR, it's got pretty much the same thing content-wise

Johannesburg O.R. Tambo International airport (JNB)

The check-in area. This is Terminal B or the domestic terminal. International departures go out of Terminal A, which is 5 5-minute walk away. 

Another photo of the area. The airport is very safe, at least inside. Just don't walk outside the airport at all, although the general rule of never walking outside alone is pretty much true for most of South Africa. 

Load-shedding - something that all South Africans are very familiar with however it's a rather alien concept to most Westerners. It's basically when electricity is deliberately shut off to parts of the city to reduce strain on the network (when the demand exceeds the supply). Unfortunately, like most things in South Africa, it disproportionately affects the poor more than the rich. 

Security took around 5 minutes, and here are the gates. 

There a good number of restaurants, both eat-in and fast food. 

Our flight, being operated by a Dash 8-100, will depart out of a remote stand. Here are the bus gates. 

The flight

Surprisingly, while 90% of flights in South Africa is tracked by FR24, smaller airlines like CemAir aren't so no route information sadly. Aircraft information is available thankfully so there's no guessing the aircraft type this time. ;)

Boarding started on time and here's a Safair Boeing 737-800 (ZS-FGX) heading to Cape Town (CPT).

There were just 5 of us on this flight, which meant no waiting at all. Here's a photo of the apron as we head towards the plane. 

From left to right: An Airlink Embraer 170 heading to Richards Bay (RCB) (a city near Durban, if that helps). She's in the old livery when the airline was still called SA Airlink. 

A South African Airways Boeing 737-800 heading to Cape Town (CPT). She's wet-leased from Turkish Airline SunExpress (hence the blue tail).

Another Safair Boeing 737-800 in the old livery, no clue where she's heading to. 

And here's our plane. 

Some information about our plane:

Type: De Havilland Canada DHC-8-100
Registration: ZS-DHC
First flight: 13 March 1986
Age: 38 years
Config: Y37

A Dash 8-100 with a very interesting history. She was delivered to Fairways (an now defunct American charter company) in April 1986. She then flew for the US Department of Justice from March 1997 before joining CemAir in November 2014. 

Just the standard Dash 8 seats onboard. 

However, unlike other Dash 8s, the legroom on this one is really good. 

Taxiing out 5 minutes late. 

Takeoff past some parked heavies. These are all the morning arrivals and will park here until 7-8PM when they'll head back to Europe. 

Nice views as we climb through the clouds. 

Surprisingly, CemAir actually gives out sandwiches on this flight. Most airlines just give out a small snack on Dash 8 flights. 

Another photo outside the window. 

Pretty soon after that we started our descent over… nothing… there's literally nothing below us apart from dirt and hills. Being from the UK, I'm really not used to places with such a low population density. 

Finally! Civilization! 

Welcome to the Northern Cape! We arrived 5 minutes late. 

Kimberley airport (kim)

The terminal building. It's not a big airport (as you'll see in my next FR). 

And here's the baggage reclaim belt. 

One last photo of our plane from the belt. 

If you're coming to South Africa. The general rule is to never hold your phone out in public places. Generally airports are safe but it's better to be safe than sorry, especially in smaller airports like Kimberley. I had an interesting chat with my taxi driver on the way to the hotel, he casually mentioned to me that he really like Kimberley because it's a lot more "chilled out" than the bigger cities because there's no traffic (which is really nice) and that there's no police (which, to me, doesn't seem very nice). I was quite alarmed by how casually he mentioned it, more so after someone attempted to rob him while we were stopped at a light. He was holding his phone out and I just saw someone sprinting towards him from the other side of the road. Apparently that was normal because he just smiled, waved his phone at the guy and calmly drove off. Yeah… needless to say I didn't try walking around the city, which is something I like to do whenever I'm visiting a new place. 

Talking about taxis, if you are coming here, I'd highly recommend pre-booking a taxi before you get here. Also make sure to do it a few days in advance. There's only like 2 taxi companies and like a small handful of drivers. One of those companies cancelled on me on my 2nd day (the sole driver was running late) and I spent over an hour trying to find another taxi (they all ended up going to voicemail). I (thankfully) did end up making it back to the hotel, only after I had phoned the reception to call a taxi for me… 

I'll end this FR here. My next FR in this series should cover the return flight back to Johannesburg. Thanks for reading and see you there!