The reported distance from Johannesburg to Santiago is 5,000 nm across the southern ocean. That would be an easy flight. But they don't. Instead they fly 8,000 nm via Senegal.
You are aware, aren't you, that
Dakar: the capital of
Senegal, by being situated on the
Cape Verde Peninsula (approx.
17½°W.), is home to the 2 westernmost international airports in Africa: historic
DKR and the new
DSS (IATA), each featuring 1 runway longer than 11,400 ft.?
"Not enough demand" is a TOTAL lie. Airlines do everything to make money. Fuel costs MONEY. They are NOT going to fly an 8,000 nm "V" into the north, if they can fly a 5,000 nm STRAIGHT LINE in the south.
As usual, when Smedley is challenged by an entirely plausible refutation from a
spherist, he just intensifies his rhetoric, apparently hoping that doing so will distract readers from noticing that all he's done is just restated his preconceived notions or
flattist talking points, and continues his failure to offer any logical evidence--never mind any proof!
Dakar has the most sensible international airports for stop-overs from which to keep an airline's passengers flying northward, eastward, or southward within its own brand, to destinations much more popular, thus creating much higher demand, than either Johannesburg or Santiago (presumably the capital of Chile, near 71°
W.). I'd be really shocked if connecting flights for other final destinations, e.g., Athens, Cairo, Istanbul, Lisbon, Madrid, Nairobi, Paris, Rome, didn't generate much greater demand for stop-overs in Dakar, thus much more profit for an airline, than the hypothetical
nonstop transocean flight to Johannesburg (near 28°
E.).
The latter flight to the bottom (
ahem!) of Africa would bypass 45° of longitude in Africa that are home to other potentially profitable stop-overs. As perspective for us United-Statesians, 45° is the same span of longitude as Philly [
★] to Lake Tahoe (75°W. to 120°W.)!
-------
Note
★: Wishing all United-Statesians a happy
Real-Independence Day, i.e.:
July 2: the day of the crucial
vote approving independence, as attested by Patriot John Adams. As distinct from that day of mere paperwork--every delegate fancying himself an editor, arguing over T.J.'s wording of the Declaration--that our country somehow slipped into celebrating.
[Haaades], yes, I digress!