I flew from Aberdeen to Cape Town via Heathrow with BA. When were you thinking of going? Perhaps BA is not the best option right now though

2eq,

Your only option of a direct, ie non-stop service is to fly from London. You have plenty of options from there. All other UK airports go via a hub in either europe or the middle east. I want to dive with Great White Sharks off Cape Town and looked in to it for my 30th a few years ago when Flyglobespan started a flight direct from Manchester. I was booked in business class but they pulled the service through lack of demand before I managed to go!

You might want to compare prices from the following airlines;

South African Airlines (non-stop or via Johannesburg)
British Airways (non-stop)
KLM (via AMS / Johannesburg with SAA)
Lufthansa (via Frankfurt)
Air France (via CDG / Johannesburg with SAA)
Virgin Atlantic (via Johannesburg with SAA)
Qatar Airlines (via Doha)
Etihad Airlines (via Abu Dhabi)

The quote for Emirates looks pretty competative though. Always check on the connection times to make sure you aren't hanging around for too long. Some connections are over 12 hours so I'd rather pay a little more for better connections.

Darren

Having routed via Dubai from Cape Town recently with emirates I considered there service fine and with good leg room in cattle class on the B777. The return flight connected nicely with the Emirates 001 flight from Dubai to Heathrow - not so sure about Birmingham.

Lots of work going on at Cape Town airport because of the world cup but it did not intefere too much with our check in and boarding procedures etc.

The price is also a matter of personal taste but I would take emirates over BA (if they survive) or KLM.

Nivsy