Johannesburg - Heavily-indebted SA Express, the state-owned airline which operates as part of the SAA group although it is not owned by the national carrier, plans to undercut SA Airlink on three domestic routes.
The routes, which SA Express will start next month, are between Cape Town and George and between Johannesburg and Nelspruit and Johannesburg and Pietermaritzburg.
SA Express commercial manager Brian van Wyk said yesterday: “We are not aiming to start a price war with Airlink. As an airline we are continuously looking for innovative ways to be responsive to passengers’ needs and we believe we can offer a better product at a more competitive price.”
SA Express is a franchise holder of SAA and operates as a fellow member of the group.
“There is enough passenger growth and market demand for another operator to fly these routes. We believe that by offering competitive fares we will stimulate demand and make these routes even more affordable. South Africa needs a competitive market that can contribute towards economic growth and present consumers with lower fares,” van Wyk said.
“SA Express will fly a turbo-prop dash aircraft to Pietermaritzburg. It is a very fuel-efficient aircraft that makes our cost per seat prices more reasonable so that we can provide a much cheaper fare than the present operators.
SA Express was started as South Africa’s first black-owned airline by the Thebe Investments group, and a Canadian airline company seconded executives to run it.
The new airline built up mounting debts and it was eventually taken over by the Department of Transport.
Suggestions that it should be taken over by SAA were refused by the national carrier because of high levels of debt.
The parliamentary committee on public affairs heard this week that the airline still had multimillion-rand debts including a government loan and it was proposing to invest $840 million (R8.2 billion) on 13 new aircraft over five years.
SA Airlink chief executive Rodger Foster confirmed yesterday that the airline was still a franchise holder of SAA.
Foster said he could not understand why SA Express was allowed to continue to waste millions of rands. - Business Report
