Simon @ GoTravel24

Although iol would have you believe otherwise, the move from Durban International Airport to the brand new King Shaka International Airport seemed to go pretty smoothly with only reports of one air bridge not working and passengers (gasp!) had to use the stairs instead, and a chap who caught a shuttle to the old airport to collect his car has to move trolleys himself. Someone also lost a bag which was returned later. 

Here I quote:

On the air bridge:

Blaze Eigenmann, of Port Shepstone, said that while the airport was beautiful, he felt it was still experiencing "teething problems" after the 1Time flight he was on was unable to connect to an airbridge.

"The airbridge extension was unable to link to the door of the plane, and we were told to exit the plane at the back. We were told there were external stairs at the bottom of the airbridge that would take us into the terminal. It wasn't too far away, and there weren't many stairs, but they were narrow, and it might have been tricky for people like the elderly and the disabled."

Weird that - before the advent of air bridges, we ALL used to exit planes via the stairs, and we managed to help handicapped and elderly passengers on and off too.

On the trolleys blocking the parked car:

Eigenmann also complained that he struggled to find out where to get a shuttle to his car, which was parked at the old airport. 

"I was sent from one building to the other, and finally paid for my ticket and took the shuttle to the old airport. Trolleys had been lined up and were blocking the way out of the old airport. There wasn't a single person around to help and I had to move the trolleys myself to get out."

The only problem I can see here is that he needed to move trolleys to get his car out. This has to be done at Fourways Mall every Saturday morning. MOVED BY MYSELF NOGAL!

On the missing bag:

Linda Mossop-Rousseau had a bag go missing, but it was returned to her later that day. An airport official told her that the bag may have been left behind in Joburg and asked her to report it to the baggage claims counter.

Mossop-Rousseau, who had flown from Joburg to visit her mother in hospital, said: "The bag was returned by midday and it had been wrapped in plastic. When it was dropped off, they were very apologetic.

A bag went missing and was returned, and this somehow made the news.

If that's really the worst of the worst, then congrats to ACSA for a successful move, as well as the staff at King Shaka International Airport. 

To see a gallery of the spanky new airport, check this out: http://www.gotravel24.com/galleries/feature-focus/king-shaka-international-airport

Botswana wants Gabarone to become the new hub for air travellers in Southern Africa with its new expanded Sir Seretse Khama International Airport (SSKIA).

The plan is to make SSKIA less of a destination airport and more of one where passengers are in transit. This business model does work as airlines like Qatar Airways have shown. Aside from the few business travellers, no one actually wants to go to Doha (Qatar's hub), yet what the airline does well is fly to almost all major European cities, and all major Eastern and African cities and links them up with flights via Doha which cost less than flying direct. 

So, for example. If it cost you R5000 to fly from Lagos to Joburg direct with SAA, Botswana Air could conceivably charge R3900 saving you R1100 but costing you an extra few hours in transit through Gabarone. That's what Qatar Airways has done really successfully between London and Johannesburg. 

Botswana also won't be the first African city to do this: Addis Ababa is very much a transit hub with a not so massive amount of traffic going in and out of the city itself. 

For more info you can read this: http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=4&aid=1979&dir=2010/April/Wednesday28

Unfortunately, the volcanic ash cloud of last week is still going to have a longer-term impact for travellers, even though the skies are now usable.

As you know, airlines only make money when their planes are in the air. A week of grounded aircraft cost the airline industry GBP1.4 billion and it is estimated that fare prices will rise by around 5% to accommodate the heammoraging losses suffered.

It is estimated that this will edd an approximate average of GBP48 to tickets for flights departing the UK. It will add GBP62 to fares between London and New York. On top of this, the oil price is high, air taxes go up again in the UK in Oct/Nov and the industry was struggling prior to the ash cloud anyway.

Eyjafjallajokull was the absolute last thing the airline industry needed.

Be prepared to cough up, because it coughed up.

See more info on travelmole here.

British Airways and Iberia (Spain's flag-carrying airline) have signed a merger agreement which should result in a joint venture from the end of the year. The comanies released a statement, which I pinched from the BBC site, saying "

the merger would benefit shareholders, employees and customers" and it is also expected to save the airlines 400m euros ($533m; £350m) a year. At the rate BA is heammoraging money, that's good news.

There are some benefits to the consumer, including a total of 419 air craft flying to over 200 destinations meaning more choice. "Ah", I hear you say, "I could have flown BA or Iberia anyway". Nay, the benefits here are the amount of landing slots that Iberia has in South America which BA basically wants. Because you can now make one booking across two airlines, your choices of flights and connections is much greater, although the cost will probably remain the same.

So it's not massive news, but I don't feel like worrying today's main travel news story because it's just too much for this early in the morning:  World Cup blow for SA hotels

This morning during a little perusal on iol I nearly gave myself whiplash as I snapped my neck back when I saw the headline "SA safer for tourists than Spain or Germany".

It is slightly misleading, as it refers only to British tourists to South Africa, and compares them with other British tourists to Germany, Thailand and Spain.The period over which these statistics were accumulated was the year from April 2008 to March 2009.

In that year, 451 580 British tourists visited South Africa. Add that to the 212 000 already living here and you get 663 580. Of them, 23 were arrested, 23 were admitted to hospital and 48 died from accidents, natural causes or murder. There were no rapes or sexuals assaults. In easy numbers, 1 out of every 28 852 British people visiting South Africa was arrested or went to the dokotela, and 1 out of 13 483 died.

Compare this to Spain where 761 000 Brits live there, and 17 million per year travel there. Brits suffered 1825 deaths there (1 out of 9732 tourists) and 2290 arrests (1 out of 7756).

I pulled the numbers for Germany off the FCO website. Old Deutschland has around 115 000 British residents and was visited by 2 219 000 during this study (total: 2 334 000). 483 deaths spells out that 1 in 5328 UK visitors to Germany snuffed it, and 1 out of 15 770 spent time in chookie.

Thailand is damn dangerous for the Poms. During this time period, 1 death from every 2819 visitors occured.

None of these stats mention cause of death - illness, old age, accidents, murder - it's all wrapped up into one stat.

These numbers are pulled DIRECTLY off of the FCO website - the British Government's travel authority. You can see it on www.fco.gov.uk.

British Airways faced a strike over the weekend with more to come, and Lufthansa could be the next airline facing a staff walkout. European travel is almost halted as two of the continent's largest airlines are enforcing pay freezes and so on.

The Lufthansa strike has more implications for South Africans as it is the main Star Alliance Member. So, here is just a friendly reminder that you should confirm your flights to, from or via Frankfurt/Munich if you are travelling from Tuesday 13 April to Friday 16 April.

Even if you are flying on SAA to Frankfurt, you MUST check that your connecting flight from Frankfurt is still scheduled.

All passengers whose flights are affected should either be rebooked on to another flight at no cost, or fully refunded by Lufthansa, or other Star Alliance airline.

Contact Lufthansa by email or by telephone at their Reservation Centre:

You may know that there is currently one serious shitfest going on between Mexican and USA law enforcement, and drug cartels sending drugs into the States through Mexico.

So, as the first world countries tend to do, there is abject panic in the USA about travelling to Mexico - every country that is not the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada or Western Europe faces this all the time. While they sit there knee-jerk state of panic that Mexico is turning into the home of drug lords who want nothing more than Communism and to take things from the US, and how in South Africa the black people eat the white people and take all their stuff, a (surprisingly) reasonable travel warning is issued by the US State Department.

The warning regarding Mexico travel reads: The State Department warns against travel in the border towns of Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and Matamoros, but most beach resorts and other historical spots popular with American tourists are unaffected.

Doesn't that echo anything?

Isn't that exactly how we advise people to travel in South Africa? I vividly remember telling tourists to enjoy Joburg but stay out of places like Hillbrow, Alexandra etc. You wouldn't want Capetonian tourists to get lost in gang-land (not far outside the city). Durban tourists would be warned against going into parts of the CBD. Obviously there are dangerous parts of South Africa. And there are dangerous parts of Mexico.

But naysayers who dash around pouring rumours upon the whole country do a massive disservice to countries, particularly to those who rely heavily on tourism - eg. South Africa (tourism expected to be 12% of GDP in 2010) and Mexico (around 8-9%).

Admittedly, there are problems here, but tourists hovering around Camps Bay, Sandton City and Zimbali aren't going to be affected by them. There is no dictatorship or civil war here, no state of emergency, no rebel faction patrolling the forests and highways and making up taxes, no reason to bribe airport officials, no army escort for VIPs, no genocide, and al-Qaeda doesn't seem to want to kick us either.

Carol Pucci from the Seattle Times writes "“Too often in the past, [...] government alerts have taken a broad-brush approach, simply advising against travel to a country as a whole".

And I don't think I can say it any better than she just did.

Comair update on price fixing allegations and World Cup pricing

Friday, 29 January, 2010

Comair was informed yesterday via the media of the Competition Commission's intention to investigate whether it and other domestic airlines in South Africa have colluded on ticket pricing for the World Cup. This followed a leniency application filed with the Commission by SAA in December 2009.  Comair has yet to receive a formal complaint from the Commission but has strongly denied taking part in any collusive practice at any time.  

Despite no investigation having commenced, Airlink passed on to the media an e-mail, originating from Comair, on the assumption that this is the basis for the allegations by the Competition Commission. 

This e-mail from Erik Venter, joint CEO of Comair, is in response to an e-mail from Pule Selepe of the Department of Transport, advising the airlines that the matter of alleged excessive pricing by the airlines was to be raised at the Aviation Sub-Sector Task Team meeting on 26 November 2009, the following day.

Says Venter "As I could not attend the meeting, the best that I could contribute to the debate was to set out Comair's concerns regarding the World Cup, so that DOT had the benefit of our views.  At no stage have any meetings or discussions been held on working together on joint strategies.”

According to Venter, "The e-mail reflected textbook airline pricing principles that any commercial airline would implement, based on supply and demand, and cost recovery. There is no suggestion whatsoever, of non-standard practices.  In fact, the e-mail clearly states that Comair expects airline ticket prices to fall once the airlines have implemented their extra capacity for the World Cup, and that the pricing is anticipated to average out at the level experienced over a typical South African peak holiday season.”

Comair reiterates that its pricing over the World Cup period is being managed as a function of supply and demand in the same way that its pricing is always done.  It is anticipated that certain days will have excessively high demand and as such more flights have been added and prices have been set at rates consistent with other peak periods like long weekends and special events. (See pricing snapshot below). Likewise it is anticipated that many flights over the period will have very low demand and will be priced at heavily discounted levels, particularly if the estimated number of fans does not materialise. Earlier this week kulula.com ran a sale which covered part of the World Cup period and in which over 100,000 seats were sold at between R299 and R399.

"Ironically, the 'naai jou maatjie' initiative of two fellow domestic airlines attempting to discredit a competitor is proof of the no holds barred aggressive competition in the industry.  We will obviously co-operate fully with any investigation and will continue to focus on the challenge of effectively serving the hundreds of thousands of World Cup fans we are expecting to see," concluded Venter.

kulula pricing snapshot

I'm a bit late on this story, but I thought it was still worth mentioning that the new big thing in aviation, the Airbus A380 will be making it's first commerical voyage to South Africa soon, courtesy of Air France (AF). The airline is the only connection between Paris and Johannesburg (as SAA doesn't fly to France anymore) and from March, there will be a daily flight connecting the two cities.

To my knowledge, the only other Air France route using the A380 is between Paris and New York, so it is quite a compliment to us that this is happening.

You can read more about it here.

For more info on the A380, readup here.