Because it sees demand from the travel trade for a more upmarket product offering for VIP, corporate and government customers, FlySafair has pimped up its Y-class offering, which now includes a number of value-adds.

The new offering, which is now available for sale in the GDSs, includes priority boarding and two 23kg pieces of luggage in the cost of the airfare.

Chief Marketing Officer of FlySafair, Kirby Gordon, told TourismUpdate that they had received a lot of requests from agents to be able to incorporate their priority boarding offering in a GDS airfare. This has motivated the airline to zoop up its Y-class GDS offering, which now included a bundle of services including both priority boarding and an additional luggage allowance, available in a quick and easy GDS offering for agents to sell.

“Since we introduced the new offering, we have already noted a marked uptick in Y-class trade sales,” said Gordon, who was pleased with how well the offering was selling.

FlySafair also launched a service last year where customers could pay extra to ensure that the middle seat next to them was left empty. According to Gordon, this option proved very popular with passengers who wanted to secure additional space and maintain social distancing during the flight.

Referring to the offering, Gordon said FlySafair had also received a lot of requests from agents who wanted to be able to book it through the GDS.

“Unfortunately from a technology perspective this has not yet been achievable but we continue to look at different ways to get this right in the GDS. In the meantime we do offer a manual service where agents can contact our call centre to have this service loaded on to their bookings for VIP and government clients,” said Gordon.