Domestic flight prices will drop, says airline, but not for December holidays

If the skyrocketing prices of domestic flights is stressing you, here’s some good news from FlySafair: prices will drop to more “familiar” levels — but not before February 2023.

If you're planning to fly away on your December holidays, delaying your booking is only going to cost you more. 

And if you’re holding out for last-minute Black Friday deals on November 25, that won’t be happening either, at least not from FlySafair.

The airline’s chief marketing officer Kirby Gordon said the escalated flight prices of late come down to demand and supply. Simply put: there are more people wanting to fly than there are seats available. 

Just before the pandemic, South Africa’s domestic flyers had access to about 1.5-million seats per month. The flying bans meant this dropped drastically, but by June this year it had recovered to about 1.2-million seats.

Gordon said the “stumbling block” of Comair's liquidation in June — taking both British Airways and Kulula out of the local skies — set the industry back to about 900,000 to 1-million seats a month.

Travel appetites have clearly returned, flights are literally full, and, said Gordon, “everyone is scrambling to get more planes and seats in the air”.

But this is not a quick or simple exercise.

“While we have been doing everything we can to add capacity, it’s not something we can roll out at the drop of a hat. It takes a huge amount of planning to bring in a new aircraft.”

The airline will add six Boeing 737-800s to its present fleet of 25 aircraft by the end of April 2023.

Gordon said the country’s other remaining domestic carriers — Lift, CemAir and Airlink — are also working to boost capacity. 

For this summer, FlySafair has increased its operations to 7,652 flights and about 1.4-million seats. This is a 141% jump from last year. 

However, it seems it won’t be enough to “normalise” things for the December holidays, when prices usually rise anyway.

Gordon said bookings are far ahead of what they were this time last year. 

His advice: “If you want to fly in December, book immediately because there might not be a seat if you wait too long.”

Besides not getting a seat at all, prices rise as the planes fill, so if you do manage to nab a seat later, you will pay dearly. Gordon estimated that on flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town around mid-December, “the last seats will probably go up to R3,800 one way”.

At the time of writing, a return flight between the cities in peak holiday season is about R5,000.

“We expect airfares will normalise in late January to early February,” said Gordon. “This will be a product of a natural lull in seasonal demand and, more significantly, an increase in the number of seats available in the market.”

Besides booking as soon as possible, Gordon has a hack for those looking to get the best deal over the holidays: “Over the Christmas period particularly, people are quite good at shopping for the cheapest flight for their departure by being flexible about the departure dates, but when it comes to the return flight in January, everyone wants to come home on the same day. 

“Be creative on both sides,” he advised. “Consider coming home a bit earlier and you will make some savings.”

As for Black Friday specials, he said there may be great deals available for booking on the nation’s big sale day of November 25, but they will most likely be only for flights next year and will exclude the December holidays.

Before Covid-19, South Africa had eight domestic airlines in operation. Kulula, British Airways, SA Express and Mango have all been grounded or liquidated, leaving us with four: FlySafair, CemAir, Lift and Airlink. 

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