SA’s airlines are experiencing strong demand ahead of the festive season, with expectations of a better December than last year — though bookings are still below pre-Covid levels.
And even though locals desperate for travel are booking flights and foreign tourists are beginning to return thanks to SA’s removal from travel red lists, the spectre of a possible fourth wave of the pandemic still looms, tempering some of the optimism.
Rodger Foster, CEO of Airlink, said the industry is probably in its best position in 20 months, but though it may “want to celebrate and bring out the Moët, the reality is that we have a long way to go till we see recovery to pre-Covid levels”.
Foster said international travel is probably up to about 30%-40% of pre-Covid levels, and the domestic market is at about 70% of what it was.
He said Airlink has “eclipsed its pre-Covid all-time high in terms of forward booking” but this is partly thanks to it adding flights on domestic and regional routes that “we weren’t active on or were less active on before”.
Foster said there is much to feel optimistic about, for example the removal of SA from the UK’s red list and the easing of lockdowns in neighbouring countries. However, there is “still a lot uncertainty brought about by the potential fourth wave of the pandemic”.
It’s not going to quite compete with a pre-Covid summer holiday season, but it will certainly be better than last year
— Kirby Gordon, FlySafair
He said it’s not business as usual because there are concerns about rising Covid cases in Europe as it heads into winter and the threat of SA following suit.
Kirby Gordon, chief marketing officer of low-cost carrier FlySafair, agreed that the prospect of a fourth wave is “worrying” but said the group has had “to deal with a few [lockdown] level changes already — so we know what to do now”.
He said FlySafair’s forward sales are looking stronger than this time last year with the vaccine rollout giving customers more confidence to book ahead. And the airline has made its ticketing more flexible to allow for refund vouchers “and so on”.
“So all-in-all we are optimistic about a good December. It’s not going to quite compete with a pre-Covid summer holiday season, but it will certainly be better than last year.”
Gordon said FlySafair has increased its market share to about 45% from 24% before the pandemic. It is operating more flights in December than ever before and in the past few months the airline has recruited 28 more staff to bring its total complement to 1,138.
Simon Newton-Smith, in charge of commercial operations at SAA, said that though the airline — which relaunched in September — has to be prepared “for any eventuality relative to Covid”, the fourth wave many overseas markets have experienced is related to the Delta strain, which has been present in SA since early in the year.
“On this basis, SAA is prepared for but not anticipating lockdown disruption over the holidays,” said Newton-Smith.
Overall, he said, the group, which exited business rescue at the end of April this year, is “really encouraged by ticket sales for the holidays and especially seasonal favourite destinations such as Cape Town and Mauritius”.
Airlines are also taking heart from the international travel front, with CemAir CEO Miles van der Molen saying the number of flights to SA is increasing.
“Every week you see the apron on the other side gets another aeroplane joining the party, which is fantastic. We are starting to see that happening now, slowly but surely.”
Domestically, he said, there is “probably a little bit more supply than demand”.
He said there is some nervousness about a fourth wave, but South Africans have “Covid fatigue and after each successive lockdown the market has come back faster each time”.
Van der Molen said flight frequency capacity is probably 80% of what it was before the pandemic and passenger traffic is 50%-60% of pre-Covid levels.
Desmond O’Connor, chief commercial officer at Kulula.com, which is operated by Comair, said the group is seeing a significant increase in demand, especially for December, and Kulula is adding flights.
There is this whole concept of ‘revenge travel’, with people who couldn’t travel because of lockdown restrictions just wanting to get out and travel again
— Jonathan Ayache, CEO of Lift
He said there is strong demand for holiday trips, as reflected on Kulula's newly launched holidays site. This sells Comair routes, including such destinations as Mauritius and Victoria Falls. “Due to demand we increased the weekly flight to Mauritius to three flights per week, and we have seen a huge uptake on the Mauritius route for December, which is very encouraging.”
Comair is still in business rescue, but its business rescue practitioners said last month “the airline is performing above expectations on several key measures including load factors, ticket yields, fixed and variable costs, sales volumes, and individual route profitability”.
New airline Lift, which joined the market a year ago, is also noticing an uptick in demand. CEO Jonathan Ayache said : “There is this whole concept of ‘revenge travel’, with people who couldn’t travel because of lockdown restrictions just wanting to get out and travel again.”
He said there has been a strong upswing in demand since the third wave began easing in July, adding that the group’s strong forward bookings are due to it being “the first to launch with true flexibility”, allowing passengers to change or cancel their flights themselves online without charge.
