Comair has admitted it is employing “punitive” airfare increases to discourage individual air travel during the FIFA World Cup next year.

Comair executive manager, Yasas Sri-Chandana, told the annual conference of the Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) that individuals should not be booking travel during that period and that Comair at this stage was employing “punitive rates to discourage people from travelling then”.  “It’s a discouragement price increase,” he said. However, he added, FIFA expected airlines not to charge exorbitant fares once the World Cup arrived. Final ticket prices from April/June next year were likely to reflect demand instead. Comair, he added, would give preference to travel agents and tour operators who committed to passenger numbers.  However, until the final draw was done in December, agents couldn’t give commitments, meaning Comair couldn’t yet finalise its schedule. SAA head: business development, Jason Krause, said SAA would not penalise individual travellers but confirmed fares would be higher during the World Cup. “The average price will be set by supply and demand.” 1time ceo, Rodney James, admitted that in 2010 the carrier would be trading “as high as we can…but we can only sell as high as the market accepts”. Nevertheless, he was expecting yields to go up because of increased demand during the period. Air Zimbabwe group ceo, Peter Chikumba, agreed the airline would treat the World Cup as peak season with demand-driven pricing. Mango Airlines ceo, Nico Bezuidenhout, said the airline had a socio-economic responsibility to South Africans and its economy-class seats would be available on normal December fares. “Competition will set the pricing, but we have a responsibility not to out-price ourselves,” he said. Meanwhile Krause said SAA’s capacity planning for the World Cup was done through the World Cup Organizing Committee’s airline sub-committee. “Collectively, we should be able to meet the demand. Once the final draw has been done, we will decide if SAA needs to bring in extra capacity.” Sri-Chandana said extra capacity would be needed in terms of pilots and technicians, because many maintenance crews had relocated overseas before the economic crisis. He predicted there would be a lot of “poaching of staff” amongst airlines in the run-up to the event. ATNS executive officer service delivery, Boni Dibate, said the entity faced staff capacity challenges because of a “brain-drain” of air traffic controllers to the Middle East, but she was “generally confident” ATNS would be able to manage increased traffic during the World Cup. At this stage, ATNS infrastructure was able to handle 72 aircraft movements per hour at Ortia; 40 at Cape Town International Airport; and 28 at Durban International Airport. “We need to know from the airlines as soon as possible if they are bringing in extra capacity, because this impacts on staff capacity at ATNS,” she stressed.