FlySafair’s R1 promotion fails to take off as it hits turbulence

THE IDEA of buying flights for only R1 each had many people on cloud nine – but their dreams were shattered when FlySafair’s website crashed.

The low-cost airline announced that it would make 30 000 flights available to any of its destinations for only R1, including airport taxes, in celebration of its first birthday.

But, barely a few hours after the online sale started at 5am yesterday, frustrated customers had flooded social media with complaints about how the airline’s website had crashed.

The airline was subsequently forced to extend its sale.

In addition to #FlySafair, Twitter users also used the hashtags #NotStrongerThanTheRand and #R1SaleForWhat to vent. FlySafair posted regular updates on its Facebook page, claiming that the site had not crashed.

“The response has been overwhelming and our servers are being kept very busy. Please be patient and try again,” it wrote.

In another message, it posted a photo of kittens with the words: “Calm down and look at these kittens.”

Later in the day, the airline said it had in fact increased its server capacity before the sale but had not expected the massive response.

“We are thrilled at the overwhelming response to our R1 sale, which is attracting more than 30 times our usual internet traffic load. In anticipation, we had doubled our already ample server capacity to deal with the day’s demands, but the enthusiastic response is unprecedented.”

FlySafair spokesman Kirby Gordon said the airline had been working for months to increase its call centre and server volumes in preparation for the sale.

“The numbers on the site just started growing and growing and growing. It was amazing to see. Then, unfortunately, it reached a point where it maxed out.”

Gordon said its technical partners in the US, Radix, had worked to resolve the problem and that the sale, which was supposed to end at midnight, would be extended to midday today.

Another low-cost airline, Mango, took the opportunity to poke fun at FlySafair by tweeting a photo imitating the Mango website displaying the words: “No Server Error”.

Meanwhile, Mango said it would not lay a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority against FlySafair’s “continued imitation of its early and current marketing campaigns”.

Mango spokesman Hein Kaiser said that in effect, FlySafair was paying travellers to fly.

“This effectively means that the new airline will lose more than R150 per ticket sold during the special, incurring losses,” he said.

“Multiply this by the alleged 30 000 tickets available, and the losses could be substantial. This reminds of the commercially unsustainable fares offered by the competing airline.”