New route, flight price bonanza
Ticket from East London to Johannesburg now R500
TRAVELLERS and tourists are in for a bargain as new low-cost airline FlySafair extends its routes to two coastal cities – East London and Durban.
The new airline, a division of established aviation operator Safair which has specialised in air freight and charter services across Africa, has also previously leased flights to various other airlines like Mango and 1time.
Recently Safair celebrated its 50th anniversary, while FlySafair celebrates its first year of scheduled flying this month.
FlySafair, which boasts a 25-minute turnaround, said the new routes came into effect on October 25 and were due to an “overwhelming response” in a poll it conducted earlier this year.
The routes include links from Johannesburg and Cape Town to Durban and East London, with possible links from Durban to East London in the future.
New Safair CEO Elmar Conradie said there would be two flights from East London to Johannesburg a day and one to Cape Town. On weekends there would be one flight a day to Johannesburg. Conradie said flights would start off at R499 from East London.
“FlySafair puts the consumer first by making air travel affordable to more South Africans. Our on-time performance, independently measured by the Airports Company of South Africa (Acsa), is rated best of all domestic airlines. Since the launch of FlySafair, we’ve noted a marked increase in the performance of our competitors, which is excellent news for many South African consumers who up until now were unable to afford local air travel. This is a solid indication we are setting the bar higher in favour of the consumer.”
Conradie said FlySafair had reduced local airfares by up to 39% on the routes they travelled and they had witnessed up to a 132% increase in demand on others. Earlier this year‚ Travelstart analysts reported that air ticket prices had fallen 39% on some routes with the entry of new airlines.
The fall in airline fares is a throwback to last year when – following the demise of 1Time – Comair said air ticket prices had dropped 20%‚ with FlySafair saying this was closer to 40%.
Last month Comair‚ the British Airways franchisee that operates kulula.com‚ reported a stagnation in its revenues and a 17% fall in profits due to competition with the new airlines.
Comair CEO Erik Venter said last month that either prices had to increase or one of the airlines would bow out as the losses incurred by low-cost airlines were not sustainable.
Transport economist and aviation expert Joachim Vermooten said on Monday that competition was a check for quality and price.
However‚ the market becomes distorted if state-owned airlines base their prices on subsidised operating costs. “The dominant carriers [SAA‚ Mango and SA Express] distort the market if they don’t operate on a commercial basis as other airlines set their pricing by reference‚” he said. — Additional reporting: BDLive