South African-based carrier, Airlink, has now officially been appointed by the government of the remote island of St. Helena to provide scheduled air services from O.R. Tambo Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, to the island. Airlink will also operate a monthly charter service between St Helena and Ascension Island.
Until recently, the only scheduled means of travelling to and from the the island, located in the Atlantic, roughly 1,250 miles off the African coast, was aboard the Royal Mail Ship St Helena.
St. Helena boasts a variety of landscapes and thanks to its hundreds of indigenous species and impressive marine biodiversity, it is on the U.K.’s list of possible future Unesco World Heritage Sites. As the place to which Napoleon was banished in 1815, after the battle of Waterloo, it is also of important historical significance. Napoleon died on the island at the age of 51, six years after his arrival.
Although a precise commencement date for the commercial flights has not yet been announced, the St. Helena government says that that the monthly service between that island and nearby Ascension Island is expected to start soon and operate on the second Saturday of each month.
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