kulula and British Airways customers who were told they could use what they spent on flights which were cancelled due to Covid-19 are crying foul after discovering festive season bookings are excluded.
“Their reason is that availability in December is limited, but it’s not true as there is plenty of availability showing on their website for my dates, December 26 and January 11,” said Emma Millar of Cape Town.
Comair went into business rescue in early May and assured holders of unused tickets that they could use the value of those tickets towards new bookings when flights resumed.
Last month Millar was told by Comair, via email: “The value of your tickets will automatically be extended to October 31 2021. This can be used on all flights operated by kulula or British Airways, subject to availability and difference in rates, fares and/or taxes.”
However, another condition emerged two weeks ago: “Comair will only be able to accommodate customers who are holding unused tickets between January 11 and November 20 2021.”
Millar is not impressed.
“My suspicion is that they want to maximise new bookings for the peak season, which seems very unfair to all those who paid a long time ago."
She said she’d resigned herself to having to pay full price for her festive season flights and write off the R8,500 she'd spent on kulula tickets, “but I’m very conscious other people may not be able to afford to".
Comair spokesman Stephen Forbes said the airline would operate a “reduced” schedule from next month, with limited aircraft during December.
“As per the adopted business rescue plan, the aircraft will gradually return to service from mid-January 2021, with a seven-month ramp-up period until June 2021.
“Given these unprecedented circumstances, and the system and operational constraints to allocate unused ticket values to a kulula travel bank account, Comair will only be able to accommodate customers who are holding unused tickets from mid-January 2021,” he said.
The company had been working with a skeleton team, Forbes said, “and employees will only be returning to the workplace in December 2020 to process bookings, and to facilitate the travel bank process, which can take up to eight weeks.”
“Nix” summed up the feeling of many kulula and BA unused ticket holders with her tweet: “All you (Comair) want to do is take money in from new bookings when you should be giving preference to those who already booked before lockdown.
“It makes me very sad that we can’t see our families because we can’t afford all this money to book new flights when we already have credit.”
Wendy Crawford is holding R5,500 worth of unused British Airways tickets.
“The company has held on to our money, won’t allow us first option to rebook, and yet this week advertised a sale and is taking new bookings,” she told Sunday Times Daily.
“It doesn't leave a warm and fuzzy feeling when you have been a loyal BA customer for years.”
Only about 28% of flights operating coast to coast, 2020 vs 2019
Meanwhile, the Durban-Cape Town route is currently very under-served, and the limited competition is making those fares relatively expensive.
kulula is no longer operating flights on that route, nor is new airline Lift, which takes to the skies in mid-December, operating only between Johannesburg, Cape Town and George. British Airways dropped the route several years ago.
FlySafair chief marketing officer Kirby Gordon said on the Cape Town-Durban route, only about 28% of flights were currently operating compared to this time last year.
“This month the overall market was back to about 44% of what it was last year, so there’s definitely a gap in the Cape Town-Durban route,” he said.
“At FlySafair we’ve certainly seen the opportunity to get more capacity onto that route. We’ve taken delivery of new aircraft and one will start on that route in December, taking the schedule from two return flights daily to three.”
GET IN TOUCH: Wendy Knowler specialises in consumer journalism. You can reach her via e-mail: consumer@knowler.co.za or on Twitter: @wendyknowler
