£357 Find Cheap Flights from London to South Africa – Compare and Save

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Cheap Flights from London to South Africa

Cheapest return flight prices found by our users on KAYAK in the last 5 days
Cape Town
Cape Towndirect£500
Durban
Durban2 stops£586
Port Elizabeth
Port Elizabeth1 stop£591
George
George1 stop£616
Hoedspruit
Hoedspruit2 stops£686
East London
East London2 stops£695
Pietermaritzburg
Pietermaritzburg2 stops£763
Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein2 stops£775
Mthatha
Mthatha2 stops£936
Cape Town
Cape Towndirect£500
Durban
Durban2 stops£586
Port Elizabeth
Port Elizabeth1 stop£591
George
George1 stop£616
Hoedspruit
Hoedspruit2 stops£686
East London
East London2 stops£695
Pietermaritzburg
Pietermaritzburg2 stops£763
Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein2 stops£775
Mthatha
Mthatha2 stops£936
Booking Insights

KAYAK's insights & trends for London to South Africa flights

Get data-powered insights and trends into flights from London to South Africa to help you find the cheapest flights, the best time to fly and much more.

What is the cheapest London to South Africa flight route?

The cheapest ticket to South Africa from London found in the last 5 days was to Cape Town, at £378 return. The most popular route is from London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to Johannesburg OR Tambo Airport (JNB), and the cheapest return airline ticket found on this route in the last 5 days was £583.

What is the cheapest time of day to fly to South Africa?

The cheapest time of day to fly to South Africa is generally in the evening, when retur flights cost £719 on average. Morning departures are around 100% cheaper than evening flights, on average. The most expensive time of day to fly to South Africa is generally at night, which is peak travel time and where the average cost of a ticket is £759.

Can I save money by flying with a stopover from London to South Africa?

No, with an average price for the route of £761, prices are generally cheapest when you fly direct.

What is the cheapest month to fly from London to South Africa?

The cheapest month for flights from London to South Africa is November, when tickets cost £595 (return) on average. On the other hand, the most expensive months are December and July, when the average cost of return tickets is £975 and £903 respectively.

What’s the cheapest day of the week to fly from London to South Africa?

If your flying dates are flexible, you should consider flying to South Africa on a Tuesday, as we generally find the cheapest rates on that day for this route. On the other hand, Saturday is the most expensive day to fly from London to South Africa. For your return ticket, we recommend flying on a Tuesday and avoiding Saturdays for the best deals.

How far in advance should I book a flight from London to South Africa?

To get a below-average price on a flight from London to South Africa, you should book around 2 weeks before departure, which saves you about 3% compared to booking last-minute. For the absolute cheapest price, our data suggests you should book 19 weeks before departure.

Good to know - Cheap tickets from London to South Africa

Low season

June

Cheapest flight

£357
Best time to beat the crowds (5% less expensive on average)
Most popular time to fly (26% more expensive on average)
Flight from London Stansted Airport to Cape Town

Flights from London to South Africa: the best tips from KAYAK users

Insights shared by verified travellers who flew the route from London to South Africa 
GerhardFlew with British Airways-Apr 2024
dont rely on the departure boards in the BA lounge. And prepare to have to tag and check in your own bag, even when flying business class
GregFlew with British Airways-Dec 2023
Leave at least an hour for luggage to arrive at JNB.

FAQs - booking South Africa flights

  • Can I relax at a lounge in London Airports?

    Before you fly from London to South Africa, you can enjoy some tranquil time in one of the airport lounges. At Heathrow Airport, you could take advantage of the Plaza Premium Lounge, which offers a choice of foods and drinks. You’ll also be able to use the showers ahead of your flight. Prices start from around £32.50 per person, and the lounges are accessible from all four terminals.

  • I’m planning on renting a car at the airport when I arrive. Do I need a child seat for my kids?

    If you plan to hire a car from the arrivals hall at one of the airports in South Africa, it’s wise to keep up to date with the local driving laws. Children under the age of three must be secured in a suitable child seat, whilst those under 14 must wear a seat belt.

  • How can I lower my carbon footprint by taking specific flights?

    To help reduce your carbon footprint, you can choose an airline that operates a greener service. For instance, KLM’s flight from Heathrow to Johannesburg Airport emits around 43% less CO2 than the industry average. On this route, rather than 2372kg of CO2 per passenger, it equates to only 1111kg of CO2 per passenger.

  • Are there currency exchange offices at the airports in South Africa?

    Once you have touched down in South Africa, you can access currency exchange bureaus in the arrivals area of the major airports. At Johannesburg Airport, you can find an American Express Foreign Exchange just after passport control.

  • How does KAYAK find such low prices on flights from London to South Africa?

    KAYAK is a travel search engine. That means we look across the web to find the best prices we can find for our users. With over 2 billion flight queries processed yearly, we are able to display a variety of prices and options on flights from London to South Africa.

  • How does KAYAK's flight Price Forecast tool help me choose the right time to buy my flight ticket from London to South Africa?

    KAYAK’s flight Price Forecast tool uses historical data to determine whether the price for a flight from London to South Africa is likely to change within 7 days, so travellers know whether to wait or book now.

  • What is the Hacker Fare option on flights from London to South Africa?

    Hacker Fares allow you to combine one-way tickets in order to save you money over a traditional return ticket. You could then fly from London to South Africa with an airline and back with another airline.

  • What is KAYAK's "flexible dates" feature and why should I care when looking for a flight from London to South Africa?

    Sometimes travel dates aren't set in stone. If your preferred travel dates have some wiggle room, flexible dates will show you all the options when flying from London to South Africa up to 3 days before/after your preferred dates. You can then pick the flights that suit you best.

Top tips for finding a cheap flight from London to South Africa

  • London Heathrow Airport (LHR) is a great departure airport if you are travelling with kids. There are plenty of facilities for your children, such as ‘Mr Adventure Stay and Play’ areas, offering slides and soft play zones to keep the kids occupied before take-off. There is a play area in each terminal, so it doesn’t matter which one you fly from.
  • Out of all the London airports, Heathrow tends to offer the widest choice of direct flights to South Africa, so it’s a good option if you don’t want a stopover along the way. You can get to Heathrow easily from central London, with the Heathrow Express taking around 15min from Paddington Station and the Piccadilly Line from Covent Garden requiring approximately 45min.
  • Direct flights from London are only available to either Johannesburg Airport (JNB) or Cape Town Airport (CPT). If you want to experience the South African coastline, Cape Town is a better option for you. Otherwise, flights to the country’s largest city Johannesburg will give you a greater choice of connecting flights to other locations in South Africa.
  • As a British citizen, you do not need a visa to enter South Africa as, on arrival, you will be granted a short-term stay of up to 90 days. However, you will need to make sure that you have at least six months remaining on your passport from your planned date of departure.
  • You can save yourself time on duty-free shopping at Heathrow by using the airport’s Reserve and Collect online service. With it, you can order your duty-free items before you get to the airport and simply collect them on arrival at the airport.

Reviews of the top 5 airlines flying from London to South Africa

 
Need help choosing which airline to fly with from London to South Africa? KAYAK airline reviews give an overall score for each airline based on loads of factors, including comfort, boarding, in-flight entertainment and more, to make your decision easier. See airline scores according to verified KAYAK customer reviews.
7.4
Virgin AtlanticOverall score based on 696 reviews
7.3Comfort
7.5Entertainment
6.9Food
8.1Crew
7.7Boarding
Airline reviews

Lounge was top notch h with great variety of food and drinks. Cabin crew were great. Smooth flight.

10.0 ExcellentLye Sim, Jun 2026
Read more Virgin Atlantic reviews

Lounge was top notch h with great variety of food and drinks. Cabin crew were great. Smooth flight.

My seat 3G did not go down fully and the buttons were not working properly

Food was the worst I’ve had on a VA flight. Normally it’s a lot better

These are one of the older seat arrangements facing away from the windows! Not particularly convenient sets. No storage spaces. NO COAT HANGING HOOKS. Inconvenient business class seat compared to any other airlines of similar class. Staff are excellent! Extremely professional, friendly. Food is good too.

The staff was not very polite but the flight was very very nice and comfortable and the entertainment was great

Premium economy more comfortable than economy, but not by much. Did was awful, do not try the omelette. Flight crew were helpful. Flight was delayed by over an hour. Overall but bad, arrived safely and thank God.

Food was excellent. Service was very good. Staff was very helpful to all passengers.

Your flight delayed at Heathrow n I almost missed my mother funeral.you idiots. I had to waste 10 hours in different airports. Thank your stars I'm not suing you.

Seats were old and dirty, for a long haul flight you expect to be able to recline and for the av to work properly. Choice for vegans was fruit….

Very good airline. There is still some room for improvement but overall I’m happy

The entertainment could have been better, better choice / better headphones, but overall very satisfied

The friendly staff. They kept time. Was suprised to get some drinks.

Didn’t know you had to pay for earbuds and food on flight. Sounds awesome and better way to not waste food or items. Comfort of flight is was amazing other than that

I was not expecting having to pay for headphones, water and basic food in a 9 hours flight. Price for this flight was as high as any other, still I had to pay 4 lbs for a can of sprite. On top of that flight attendance gave a bothered look when I asked her for some ice for my soda. She reluctantly when to get it, brought me literally 3 cubes and walked away without looking at me to avoid another request. I couldn’t believe it. She was soooo rude. I will never book on Norse again and I will let everyone I know about this. Unforgivable, very bad customer service.

Great crew. Customer support is pretty much non existent. I had 2 tickets that were not used, the flight was overbooked. I think I should have been reimbursed for the unused tickets.

Why call us to board if we’re going to be made to stand in the tunnel for 20 minutes. Really hard for people with little children. Plus it took me ages to check in because my seat in Premium was overbooked so I didn’t actually have a seat. I did end up receiving my seat in Premium but there was a lot of stress and confusion beforehand. Hope is it possible to overbook seats? Especially in Premium!

We flew one way from Gatwick, London to JFK NY For 2 people $1200 and no food offered not even water. You had to buy food. Norse advertises as a low fare transatlantic airline, they may want rethink that. Crew, flight was fine. Ironically we flew American from JFK to Heathrow for $1000 (2people) and included food and drinks.

We flew premium on the way TO London but went back to economy for this flight. The differences I note here may be colored by changing service. The crew was professional and polite but cold on this flight and class of service. They seemed to want to have as little to do with us as possible, beyond providing the basic services in economy. The aircraft was still good though, and the pitch was about as tight as expected - manageable but no extra personal space to spare. Overall I would certainly fly Norse Atlantic again, given the opportunity.

I loved the ability to upgrade my seat which was worth it. The large seat and ability to recline made it comfortable to fall asleep. My only two complaints were entertainment (movie selections were old) and approx 30 mins before landing the crew started to collect the blankets despite the cabin air temperature remaining cold. Maybe wait for passengers to get off the plane before collecting the blankets.

Very much dislike: Airline requires check-in at the Airport Airline does not work with TSA PreCheck

It was a great experience for my first time flying with this airline. I will be flying with them a lot more now. Plane crew was amazing.

The Boeing 737 MAX on this route, flown in the middle of the night, is an UTTER FAILURE for business travellers. The whole point of business travel is to arrive alert and recover from travel quickly, and this little aeroplane with its quarter recline uncomfortable business seats does nothing for that. It’s a small step up from economy in that you have decent legroom, but that’s it. Absolute margin at the cost of the traveller.

Traveling with Ethiopian is always a good experience. I also enjoy the stay at skylight hotel in Addis

worst was delayed luggage. could see luggage was still in Singapore but they insist I wait till all luggage are unloaded before filing a report. took 2 days to arrive and I had to collect it myself from the airport

I felt all of the food tasted the same. And we had five meals over the 16 hrs in the air.

The use of a domestic carrier without entertainment was disappointing and a let down

There where no ear phones provided and the food needs to improve.

The food needs to improve especially the fish as there where only 3 fish cubes in my plate.

Am Wowed I did not ever thought African has such an amazing airline before.

The food could be better, the beef was quite tough. The crew were friendly and helpful on this flight, which has not being my experience on other Ethiopian flights.

It was good ,I enjoyed it also crew were very respectful and patient waiting people parking their belongings.

Flight was originally postponed and then delayed further. No communication at boarding gate or via What's ap or SMS to inform you of the new time so you can plan around it.. No explanations or apologies for the delay.

Flight delay from Nairobi to JFK causing me to miss my connection. While at NBO waiting more than 5 hours for departure, no Kenyan Air representative made any announcement as to why the delay or when a new time would be given.

I really like this airline. The staff are lovely and friendly, the planes are tidy and unfussy. I would rate them at the top of the African Airline carriers.

Awful, we had a delay of 3 hrs, impacting in my transfer flight to Cape town, and Kenya airways didnt do anything. They sent me twice to transfer services in Nairobi, not been available to sleep (from 1 am to 5 am); without any update.

Flight was delayed for 9 hours. We finally arrived ved at 0435hrs instead of 1950hrs the previous day. No compensation was provided.

Apart from delay of 3 hrs in Nairobi for onward flight to Dar all fine. Looked like operational issues caused it.

I think is one of the greatest most professional airlines I’ve flown with. So sustainable as well!!! The business class is top notch!!!

The flight never took off. We sat on the tarmac for over two hours due to an electrical fault and finally the flight was cancelled. We were told that hotels would be organised but there was no further communication. In the end I retrieved my baggage and went to the car park to pick up my car and drive home. It cost me over £150 to park the car for two weeks, plus of course petrol, and over £600 for the four flights and £50 for the travel visa. All gone up in my smoke. I’m bitterly disappointed that my business Trip was cancelled and have been told I will get a “partial refund” within three months!!! What a way to treat a customer.

Few movies to choose from. They did not board by zone

The staff were fantastic and couldn't have been more accomodating; however, the air-conditioning was broken in our section of the aircraft, leaving us feeling extremely cold and unwell on arrival in Johannesbury. The head sets were also faulty, causing difficulty when listening to announcements and entertainment.

Terrible, We experienced massive delays and then couldn’t book a hotel through the link provided, nothing was available. We then went to the airport the next day and experienced further delays, almost no communication was given. We had dinner at lunchtime and breakfast at midnight. We then landed in Jhb at 1am and had to book another hotel as our flight to durban was at 8am. The experience was painful and very expensive.

Ok we did get an upgrade and the flight was delayed 45 minutes BUT without any bias. The crew were excellent, friendly, efficient and verging on exuberant, they all were so happy to do their jobs. Food excellent and the new safety video is fun to watch.

old seat need to go! outdated and uncomfortable. I waited 40 minutes for my bag

Flight on time. Food was poor - low quality and hard to eat due to poor layout

The crew on board were all very pleasant and happy to help. The flight had the old business class seats. The departure board in the business lounge did not update and kept on saying ' gate open' but never said boarding. When I got nervous about the departure time and walked to the gate I was told off rudely for being late.

Struggled with boarding pass on my iPhone.Suggest taking a printed copy. We sat upper deck at the rear on right hand side and best Economy flight in years. Bins below the windows made a massive difference for storage etc. inflight entertainment played up for a few pax but we were fine. Crew were first rate. Overall an excellent flight

They ran out of starter options but the alternative was okay. Just disappointed

Flight Beverly delayed and communication around that was poor. The actual boarding was lengthy and confusing.

Staff was wonderful. There was no breakfast because a cooling system had not been repaired. My luggage didn’t make it on the plane in London, so I had to wait to have my luggage delivered. I’m a long ways from home to be without items in my bag. We have to wait to be reimbursed for costs

More options for your flight from London to South Africa

Complete your trip to South Africa with a hotel stay or car hire