Why are countries and regions of the Global South still so cut off from each other?

[Tooting Carmen]

(And no, this well precedes the pandemic). Even in today's supposedly ultra-globalised world, there is not ONE direct flight between anywhere in Latin America/Caribbean and anywhere in the Indian Subcontinent, and only from Havana and some Brazilian cities are there direct flights to parts of Africa (Angola, Cape Verde and Ethiopia, principally from Sao Paulo). Further, within Africa only Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya have direct flights to India, while the other countries in the Subcontinent have no flights to Africa whatsoever. And let's not even mention the Pacific Islands, which can only really be reached via Australia or New Zealand (which themselves only have direct flights to a small number of countries).

And even within the Americas and Africa in particular, the options can be extremely limited and difficult, e.g. try booking a flight from the Cayman Islands to Paraguay, or Sierra Leone to Burundi. We in the West may take it for granted that we can travel to most places almost literally with the click of a button, but that is far less true in many other places.

[Celestia]

My guess is that there aren't enough people who want/can go to those destinations for them to make a profit from direct flights.

[Tooting Carmen]

My guess is that there aren't enough people who want/can go to those destinations for them to make a profit from direct flights.

It depends. Given the size of their cities and countries, there must be at least some tourism and business between Mexico or Brazil and India, for example. I cannot believe there cannot be at least a weekly flight from Mexico City or Sao Paulo to Delhi or Mumbai.

[Faklon]

It is cheaper to fly from Athens to London than it is to fly from Athens to Istanbul. Lisbon, Brussels and Melbourne are all 1-stop flights.

[ixulescu]

Every time I hear "Global South" in mainstream media the implication is "gib monies".

[mitalit]

[Tenma de Pegasus]

It depends. Given the size of their cities and countries, there must be at least some tourism and business between Mexico or Brazil and India, for example. I cannot believe there cannot be at least a weekly flight from Mexico City or Sao Paulo to Delhi or Mumbai.

Brazil and India are alien places to each other, I doubt a flight cant exist in the next 10 years...

But Maybe a Cargo Flight...

Anyway Emirates and Qatar broked all these rotes between South America and Asia. I mean, 1990 to 1999 São Paulo had many flights to Hong Kong Kai Tak, Tokyo, Osaka (largest japanese diaspora), Bangkok and Seoul via Los Angeles and others via Johannesburg operated by Varig, JAL and Vasp with 747 or MD-11. Now its everything via Dubai, before Covid Emirates was doing most traffic South America-Asia via Sao Paulo and Rio. The was only a China Airliners doing Sao Paulo-Pequim via Madrid.
South American airliners today mostly ignore Asia and fly only to Europe, North America and just one flight to Johannesburg-Sao Paulo by Latam and Sydney-Santiago by Latam. Many african airliners fly to Brazil. I think Buenos should have a flight to Cape City.

PS: The flights Havana-Luanda and Caracas-Teeran are very stranges flights that fly empty and exist only to transport gold and dictatorship soldiers.

Very very long and crazy Sao Paulo-Johannesbug-Bangkok-Hong Kong with md-11:



Flights São Paulo-Tokyo were very traditional in the Golden Times and also were the longest flights operated by both brazilian and japanese airliners for more than 40 years. Both Varig and Jal operared more than 30 years and the last flight was 2011 when JAl almost bankrupt and closed many routes around the world, including it longest and most complex flight.




When Jal closed the operations 10 yeas ago (2011):




Sao Paulo-Tokyo by Varig in the 90's


In the end, it became very expensive and non competitive to fly the very long and expensive Brazil-Asia flights when flight via Dubai or Doha or Europe were much much cheaper, today we only videos:



10 years ago there was also Singapore-Sao Paulo, but Middle East and European hubs also canibalized it, Brazil also lost half of the gdp at the same time and also did helped:


Its a similar situation of Europa-Australian-NZ flights, they are rare because Dubai and Doha kills them.