Review of Eswatini Air flight from Johannesburg to Manzini in Economy

My Signature move

Hello and welcome to another Flight Report! 

This is another special FR covering my little detour to Eswatini. Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland) is a tiny landlocked country on the border between South Africa and Mozambique. Despite its size, the country is very popular for safaris (mainly in Hlane Royal National Park to the East) and so gets a decent number of tourists, although the number is still tiny. 

However, I, to the surprise of absolutely no one, decided to go there not for its safaris or national parks but to fly another random, tiny airline - Eswatini Air! The airline is Africa's newest flag carrier commencing operations on 26 March 2023 flying 2 Embraer ERJ-145 aircraft from Manzini (the country's 2nd largest city) to Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, and Harare. I only discovered this airline when I was flicking through FlightRadar24 randomly when planning this trip. And yes, that's how I plan trips. I open up the schedule page on FlightRadar24 and pick the flights I wanna take the most - it's… unconventional… but it works for me. ;)

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.

Video report

Here's the video version of this FR. It's got pretty much the same thing content-wise. 

Johannesburg O.R Tambo International Airport (jnb)

Yup, another JNB FR, here we go again! 

The middle of the airport with international arrivals on the ground floor below. Our flight will be departing from the international terminal (obviously), which will be ahead. 

Walking there past some more restaurants. Unlike most airports, the landside area actually has a lot more restaurants than the airside area. There's also a food court in the domestic landside area, where I had lunch. 

The international check-in desks. Unusually, access to this area is only granted after a ticket check. While a lot of countries do a ticket check at the entrance, I've never seen a ticket check done in the airport before check-in. More unusually, this is the only place that requires a ticket check (there's none for the domestic check-in area). I wonder why…

Anyway, security and immigration took around 10 minutes (it feels so weird to be stamped out when I'm coming back in 2 days), and here's the airside area. 

There are soooo many duty-free stores. This terminal is much larger than the domestic one, which is kinda surprising considering that there are more domestic flights in the country. 

Another photo of the area from the upper floor, where the lounges are located. 

With my Dragonpass, I get free access to 4 lounges here in the international terminal and a further 2 in the domestic terminal. This is the Bidvest Premier Lounge. As you can see, it's fairly quiet (although that's helped by its large size) and there are a decent selection of hot and cold foods. I didn't get much as I just had lunch. 

Our flight, being an ERJ145, will depart from a remote stand. And here are the bus gates. 

the flight

Flight time to Eswatini will be 1 hour and, as usual for small airlines flying small planes in Africa, there's no ADS-B data on our flight. 

But here's a nice photo of our plane. 

Some information about our plane:

Type: Embraer ERJ-145
Registration: 3DC-EAB
First flight: Unknown
Age: ~25 years
Config: Unknown (likely Y50)


A fairly old ERJ-145 with a long history. She started life flying for French regional airline creatively named Regional Airlines, which merged into Air France subsidiary Régional (also a very creative name). which eventually merged into HOP! She then joined Eswatini Air in December 2021, when the airline was founded. 

Photo of the cabin. 

Tray table and seatback pocket. 

Unsurprisingly, the seats are unchanged from the aircraft's Air France HOP! days, which means that French is found all over the cabin. 

The legroom - very good for a regional plane. 

First views out of the window with a Fastjet ERJ-145 heading… to some far and distant land. 

Takeoff with a (very grainy) view of the airport apron. 

With nothing to see outside, let's have a look at the contents of the seatback pocket instead. 

It includes a safety card…

… and an air sickness bag. 

Shortly after, a 'disease surveillance form' was handed out. It does exactly what the title states. ;) 

A photo of the cabin, this flight is around 20% full. 

Another photo of the cabin, you can see the toilet on the right. 

Eswatini Air also gives out a snack and bottle of water, which is nice. 

Descending into Manzini.

Welcome to the Kingdom of Eswatini! We arrived 25 minutes early, which is impressive for a 1-hour flight. 

Manzini King Mswati III International Airport (sho)

This is a fairly new airport that opened in 2014 and is the only one in the country that receives scheduled flights. 

Walking to the terminal. 

It's actually a 3-4 minute walk from the plane across an empty apron. 

Immigration took around 10 minutes, which included a temperature check. Now, unlike my little Mozambique adventure, I'm sure my itinerary isn't unique, but it's pretty obvious that they don't really get foreigners here. It took so long because the officer had to manually enter everything into the system (as the automatic readers don't work for my passport). After that, he stamped me into the country…. 

… except it was the wrong date. I've got no idea how that happened, especially since our flight is the final one of the evening (did he seriously not use the entry stamp for a full day?) After that was corrected, he also stamped my 30-day 'visa' (technically not a visa but that's what they call it)… 

… except he also wrote the wrong expiry date. I only noticed that when I was in my hotel so it was too late to do anything about it. Luckily, no one cared when I was leaving.

The 2 stamps with 30th and 31st March. 

The 'visa' (conveniently stamped on top of a Schengen one) with an expiry date that is 2 months in the past. 

Here's the baggage reclaim area. 

And here's the parking lot outside. Despite its name, the airport is actually 1 hour away from Manzini. It's not far but it's quite a long drive, especially with cows roaming freely on the road. For context, the Mozambique border on the country's East is only an hour from the airport and the South African border on the North-West is only 1 hour and 40 minutes away. 

I'll end this FR here. I have 2 days here in Eswatini before heading back to Johannesburg… on another bus (yes, I actually really enjoy long bus trips haha). 

As for Eswatini, the people I talked to described it as being the 'polar opposite' of South Africa, especially when it comes to safety. I spent a day just walking around Mbabane (its capital) and never felt unsafe, although basic precautions and common sense still apply. 

Thanks for reading! ;)