Flying To Saint Helena, The Remote Airport In The South Atlantic Ocean

I arranged travel for a close friend who arrived in St Helena sailing solo and left the vessel there. His departure for NBO on SA Airlink was delayed a day but the very expensive flight was otherwise OK. He reported being happier on QR J leaving NBO, than on the arriving SA Airlink flight 😉

Interestingly, during his multi-week stay at the island (I don't say "on" because he slept aboard his vessel) he got to know the air traffic controller there and got informal briefings about expected delays, which were helpful to me, managing his onward Qsuite booking to Montreal. While in St Helena, he saw Napoleon's tomb.

There are interesting documentaries about the building of this unusual airport, including this one from Wendover:

https://youtu.be/5-QejUTDCWw?si=l5qPlrMH7I2infOc

Visiting St. Helena, you can finally put your Accor Platinum to good use as there is the Mantis St. Helena, an Accor property! How cool is that!? To utilize your hotel status benefit in one of the most remote islands in the world!

I spent 10 days on Saint Helena in 2018 - longer than expected because fog closed the airport and delayed my departure. Airlink paid for the extra days at the Mantis hotel. Can’t imagine how Airlink makes money on this. In any event, this is one of the best trips I have ever taken. The history and the scenery of the island are extraordinary. I highly recommend renting a car to roam around the island and reach the trail heads for the postbox walks. Be aware that there are very few restaurants on the island, as dining out is not a thing here. Also, although the rooms in the historic part of the Mantis (once occupied by the British East India Company) are lovely to look at, they are directly above the restaurant and very noisy.

One further thought: there was no mobile roaming (unless you were a Vodafone UK customer, as the carrier there, Sure, was stuck in the dark ages) or high speed internet back in 2018. I took a satellite phone with me (rented in Jo’burg) as I could not be disconnected from work (though the steep cliffs around Jamestown made it hard to get a line of sight connection except on the waterfront). With the Equiano submarine cable now connecting Saint Helena, there is now high-speed Internet. Not sure about the current roaming situation.

I would love to visit this place, but being there 7+ days is not something I think I could commit to. It would be a fascinating place to visit though, especially as someone who loves anything Napoleon.

What an awful video from Noel Philipps. How does the guy go to Saint Helena and not see the Napoleon house or at least mention Napoleon? I mean, I know he's into planes, but come on. And he didn't even do a loo review or mention the wine and drinks.

Saint Helena is very high on my bucket list. One day I’ll make it there!

Agree. I know he's a plane guy mostly, but how does he not go see that when he's likely never going to go back? He didn't even mention it, as you said. Which is pretty shocking.

Judging from the Arctic outfit he‘s wearing on the video cover, he cannot possibly have gone to a tropical island like St. Helena…

The amount of wailing on Noel’s comment section about not mentioning poor old Napoleon. So many tears.

He didn't even do his signature loo review.

Either it was a sponsored video by the airline/airport or he's just phoning it in these days because it's just an awful video.

And there's more on Saint Helena than just Jamestown or just Napoleon. Like I don't think he wandered more than 100 yards from the hotel.

He didn't even really show a restaurant.

The aforesaid YouTuber is despised on St Helena for stressing how horrible it was to have been “stranded” on their island; and rightly so. He was a right prick. Just trying to drive up “hits” on his YouTube channel and income to himself. Shameful. And selfish. I am on St Helena now, and I can tell you it deserves at least a week’s stay. And it is fabulous! Would be great to be stranded here for months!!

I'm not sure I would call him a "prick" but he definitely got what he wanted. He booked a ticket hoping he would get stranded. Otherwise, he would have went out and above on the island and showed his viewers the island. Sad.

Ben writes"since travel time to Saint Helena went from several days to just several hours. "

It was more complicated than that. The mail ship departed about once every two months so it would take much planning to visit. I considered it be didn't have a chance at the end

I don’t think it’s legally doable unless you’re resident to the Falklands or St Helena but you could theoretically take the charter to Ascension Island and continue on to the RAF service to Mt Pleasant and on to Punta Arenas on LATAM. Sounds like a very fun southern Atlantic trip!

I’ve rewatched the video just now and Noel absolutely did not say that. Please tell me at which point he did say it was horrible ?

Are you representative of their population?

He said beautiful St Helena.

He alluded to sadly being stranded as he had two other flights to take hence risked missing them. He was also aware of the fact the flight could be disrupted.

He then attempted to climb the steps - Jacob’s Ladder.

Americans probably don’t understand English humour.

He’s also one of the most genuine bloggers.

Perhaps consider Ben’s reviews. He flies everywhere and almost never bothers to spend time in any city or country he ever stops at. In fact Noel is one of the few decent ones that reviews places he visits, travels in economy and uses other forms of transport. He even took greyhound across the US. No idea why he decided to relocate to Houston.

United is an Airlink partner, and you can definitely redeem UA miles on Airlink for their domestic and regional services. From a quick search, I’m not seeing any availability on this route but it should theoretically be bookable if space is ever released.

Can't be too hard to pull off if there are outfitters offering regular tours there:

https://www.rainbowtours.co.uk/st-helena

I did the trip to St Helena last February. It was a short, 3-night (Sat/Sun/Mon) trip and I was lucky that the weather cooperated and there was no cancellation. But it is definitely a frequent problem and you should also build in a buffer in case it happens. A few key lessons learned - 1) The Walvis Bay stop can sometimes be skipped when they have favorable wind condition, which happened on my flight. 2) Due to lack of a diversion point, the flight is only given a go-ahead when they can be sure that the weather is good for the next 5-6 hours (the time it typically takes to fly there). 3) Be sure to prebook your airport pickup. I made the mistake of assuming there sure would be taxis waiting for arriving passengers. But there was none. Fortunately some staff member called a taxi for me from town but I had to wait for an extra 30 minutes. Apparently taxi drivers don't just show up without a prior confirmation. 4) There are very limited dining options on weekends. The weekend I was there the only place open on Sunday was the Mantis hotel. I tried to make a reservation at another restaurant but they only serve when enough people (4+?) had reserved. And that day there weren't enough customers so they remain closed... It was a great trip but had I known I'd booked the Tues-Sat flights to avoid being there over the weekend.

I flew Airlink between JNB, CPT, and MQP during our trip to South Africa. Several of these flights were available through United. I was also able to credit the paid flights to United.

I'm hoping that Airlink will transition to the Qatar Avios system, but until then, always worth a quick search on United.

The World's Most Useful Airport is a really nice documentary available on YouTube about everything that went into openning and now operating the airport.

Noel Phillips is unbearable. Jeb Brooks did much better videos about St Helena several years ago.
I highly recommend this one too
https://youtu.be/5-QejUTDCWw?si=LG008c7D35uMwmdD

Do they codeshare/interline with anyone? That's a bigger issue than points redemption, as I'm not very keen on spending too much time in SAR and with the unpredictable nature of these flights it's not wise to self-transfer without a significant buffer time.

prepaid SIMs are available

never released, I'd predict. Cash fares on this route are many thime those for other routes, for reasons outlined in Ben's post.

St. Helena is one of the most wonderful places in the world I have ever visited. I took the second commercial flight, and spent a week on the island. It was hard to leave.

He was blessed with an extra day there and he just slept in??? How did he not go to Longwood House or Napoleon's original tomb? The top of Ladder Hill looks to have some amazing views....shoot, if you don't want to walk then hire a car to drive everywhere possible on that island! Why spend $2k to go there and sit in a hotel room? There look to be so many amazing places to see there that it's strange he'd complain about an overnight and then a delay, spend a week and love it!