(Seychelles News Agency) - Air Seychelles will stop flying to Durban, South Africa, later this month, the company says.

The twice-per-week flights will be cancelled because the volume of inbound traffic fell short of Air Seychelles’ expectations, said its chief executive, Roy Kinnear.

“Since being launched, the route has relied on travellers connecting to our Mumbai flight on the way to India, while point-to-point traffic demand to the Seychelles has been lower than anticipated,” Kinnear said in a statement Friday.

He added that due to the competitive nature of the route and volume of alternative options, “this is not a viable ongoing commercial operation for Air Seychelles.”

Extremely low fares that were being charged on Durban to India flights is another contributing factor to the suspension that the executive officer outlined.

Launched late in March, the flight was complementing Air Seychelles' already-existing five-weekly flights to Johannesburg.

“Whilst being a hard and unfortunate decision to take, Durban will continue to be served in conjunction with our key codeshare partner South African Airways which offers excellent connectivity between Johannesburg and Durban,” said Kinnear.

Guests who have already booked flights to and from Durban’s King Shaka International Airport after flights end on July 27 will be placed on Air Seychelles’ Johannesburg flights. 

South Africa is currently the main tourism market of Seychelles in Africa. According to the figures of the National Bureau of Statistics over 5,600 visitors from South Africa came to Seychelles between January to May.