Most of the holidaymakers from Gauteng have gone home – some in a last-minute rush that is keeping Cape Town International Airport busy this weekend – but tourists from overseas are arriving in satisfactory numbers.
Foreign airlines are arriving with high passenger loads. But local airlines seem to disagree over when business travel will pick up again.
Gidon Novick, joint chief executive of Comair, pointed out that in previous years this didn’t happen until the end of January but, according to Hein Kaiser, communications manager for Mango, SAA’s low-cost airline, it has already started. It seems likely that the trend for business travellers to switch from full-service to the low-cost airlines will continue, as most companies are keeping their expenses down in the present uncertain state of the economy.
Novick said Comair’s full-service airline, British Airways/Comair, the franchise holder for British Airways (BA), was still well supported. Passengers on low-cost airlines can pay extra for amenities, including the use of a lounge, meals on board and some flexibility in changing flights, narrowing the difference between them and the full-service airlines. The full-service airlines, BA/Comair and SAA, offer more space, bigger baggage allowances and – a major point – loyalty programmes on which members earn points towards free overseas flights.
The already fierce rivalry between low-cost airlines seems likely to intensify over the next few months, particularly between 1Time and kulula.com, both of which are expanding outside South Africa. 1Time’s new service between Johannesburg and Maputo has proved a great success, attracting passengers from both countries.
Novick tells me Comair now also has air traffic rights to fly the route, previously reserved only for SAA and Mozambican airline LAM, and intends to start a service soon.
Meanwhile 1Time is preparing to start services from Lanseria Airport in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs, where kulula no longer benefits from an agreement giving it exclusive rights.
Desmond O’Connor, commercial director of 1Time, has told trade paper Travel Industry Review that opening Lanseria, where costs are lower than at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo Airport, to other airlines will lead to “the biggest bunfight among airlines since the low-cost carriers started up seven years ago”.
It should certainly lead to lower fares to several destinations.
This may be a year in which it becomes easier and cheaper to travel throughout Africa as demand rises and competition increases. SAA is also aiming at offering new destinations throughout the continent and strengthening its existing route network.
This, of course, is nothing new. It has been one of our national carrier’s aims for years to offer connecting flights to every major destination in sub-Saharan Africa, but this has been frustrated by protectionism of national airlines, many of which are unprofitable and under-capitalised.
This is changing – partly because of the high cost of aviation fuel and concerns about pollution, which are making it necessary to replace ageing aircraft with more economic new-generation ones now being made – and also because SAA and other South African airlines are entering partnership agreements with those on other parts of the continent.
Economic factors and greater stability in many African countries is encouraging more international trade and pushing up demand for flights. The November monthly survey by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) showed that demand for international travel to and within Africa was rising at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world.
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