Cities that are cheaper to fly to in South Africa – and the ones you should drive to

South Africa is a big country, and it’s not always clear whether it is better to make the trip to another city by driving or flying.

Petrol is incredibly expensive these days, but the high demand for flights means that South Africa’s domestic air carriers are struggling to keep up, leading to higher prices for limited seats.

What you’ll pay to fly or drive in South Africa

TopAuto compared the cost of driving and flying to several major cities in South Africa to see which option is best for those travelling on a budget.

Starting with flights, we used Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport as the starting point for all the routes we looked at, since it is the busiest airport in the country and, therefore, represents the largest percentage of all air traffic.

The following table shows the cheapest flights that were available on Google Flights booked roughly two weeks after the time of writing, on Saturday, 5 April 2025.

When looking at flights, the key factors to bear in mind is that the cost is affected by the distance travelled, as well as the popularity of the destination.

Durban is the cheapest option on the list for this reason, as it is a relatively short flight and travels to a popular city.

Cape Town is much further away but is also a high-demand route, which is why it is actually cheaper than a much shorter trip to Polokwane or Mbombela.

As for how much it will cost to drive to any of these destinations, TopAuto used Sandton as a starting point in Joburg to determine the distance to each city.

To calculate fuel consumption, we used an average rate of 7.0l/100km, as this is a general figure that represents most vehicles in South Africa.

Smaller hatchbacks and crossovers typically have a lower consumption than this, while larger SUVs and bakkies tend to exceed it.

These are the distance, time, and fuel cost results for each city, based on March’s current fuel price of R22.34 per litre for petrol 95:

Here, the comparison is very straightforward with a direct correlation between the distance travelled and the fuel used.

The real question, though, is whether it is cheaper to fly or to drive, which is shown in the table below:

In all cases, it is cheaper to drive than to fly, but this is not the whole story.

When it comes to relatively short trips to places like Bloemfontein, Kimberley, Mbombela, and Polokwane, it is undoubtedly cheaper to drive, and it may even take roughly the same amount of time once you factor in the time spent at the airport before and after the flight.

However, cities like Gqeberha, East London, and Durban are more complicated, as the money saved by driving is comparatively small, and doing so will take much longer than flying.

In these cases, the decision will likely come down to whether you want to have your own car at your destination, and if you are travelling with other people who could split the cost of petrol.

Cape Town, on the other hand, is arguably the clear option where it is better to fly than to drive, even if it is cheaper on paper, as it avoids a 15-hour drive that you will also have to repeat to get home again.