LOW-cost airline Kulula has challenged its rival airlines to lower their air fares during the 2010 Soccer World Cup, claiming the airline has the cheapest fares.
The statement comes as South African airlines are under intense pressure from both passengers and the government to drop their fares during the World Cup. The industry is also the subject of a Competition Commission investigation into the pricing of domestic air fares during the tournament.
The airline said yesterday that since the World Cup draw on December 4 last year, “Kulula has consistently offered the lowest air fares ”. It said an additional 28000 seats, mostly on its new Boeing 737- 800 aircraft, had already been made available to customers. Kulula has also undertaken to provide an additional 15000 seats if demand for World Cup seats grows.
“It’s our policy to rather add more flights than to rely on pushing prices up. If you compare the prices of domestic flights during the tournament, our prices are the lowest,” said Kulula executive Heidi Brauer yesterday.
“Even though there has been a lot of whingeing and misinformation from one competitor about our fares out of Lanseria International Airport, their fares from OR Tambo International Airport are higher than ours from Lanseria, and over World Cup — three times higher.”
This is a dig at 1time , which is taking its complaint against Kulula’s exclusive agreement with Lanseria directly to the Competition Tribunal. Last month the Competition Commission elected not to refer the matter to the tribunal as it was not anticompetitive.
Brauer warned that fares closer to the World Cup were likely to increase and encouraged travellers to book their seats early.
However, rival 1time said that prices on certain flights during the tournament were likely to drop sharply on off-peak times.
“While there will be peak fares to host cities on match days, on other days there will be little demand for seats. With the schools closed for the duration of the World Cup and a sharp drop-off in business travel, far fewer people are going to be travelling domestically and we believe that there will be fares below R300 on off-peak flights,” said 1time Holding CEO Glenn Orsmond.
He said 1time would make more seats available as the World Cup approached and the true demand patterns emerged.
BY JULIUS BAUMANN.
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