South African Airways is repositioning itself domestically, with the first signs being more pro-active and tactical specials to be released into the market, says Head of Market RSA & Voyager, Manoj Papa.
Speaking at the recent ITMSA forum in Cape Town, Papa said a new group corporate strategy team was mandated to substantially grow SAA’s domestic business, which already made up 60% of the airline’s revenue.
Great focus was on building stronger relationships and reinforcing SAA’s domestic and African sales teams and empowering them to make real-time decisions. He said SAA was also strengthening its commercial capability in key international markets (UK, India and China) and was consolidating its partnerships with South African Tourism and other marketing bodies.
Papa said one of SAA’s challenges was to leverage off the strong Star Alliance network. Working committees were examining opportunities such as round-the-world fares and customers could soon expect to see special fares that took better advantage of the Star Alliance network.
He added that SAA’s new network strategy was to provide depth to its existing network by increasing frequencies to existing destinations rather than introducing many more new routes.
Product enhancements included the impending roll-out domestically of a new lounge concept that introduced a more South African flavour and more comfort and convenience to the facilities.
He said the airline, in co-operation with the Civil Aviation Authority, was also currently conducting a six-month trial of mobile phone use in-flight, making it the first South African airline to do so.
Papa said SAA was also repositioning Voyager by reaching out to different markets and customers. His department was currently doing a detailed benchmarking of the programme. The immediate focus was on how to get Voyager into Africa, where there was great demand for it. The plan was to further strategic partnerships on the continent to stimulate revenue and membership growth.
To improve general customer service, SAA had identified 26 touch points where improvements were needed but at this stage was focusing on three: its call centre; passenger check-in; and baggage handling. The CEO’s office itself was accountable for customer service and a leadership team assessed all customer service complaints weekly. He acknowledged that customer service at SAA was not always consistent, adding this was being addressed by the airline’s steering committee. “It often boils down to the attitude of the staff. We’re dealing with it and we are focusing on up-skilling the staff.”
Papa said one the biggest challenges his department faced was how to increase its presence and service to corporates on a limited budget, alluding to the possibility that a team dedicated to corporate queries may be established.
He said the new 2012/13 SAA corporate agreement was being finalised at present and would be available to companies within a few weeks. While it contained a couple of enhancements, the new framework was not significantly different to the 2011/12 document. He added that SAA’s lawyers had been asked to simplify the 26-page document into a summarised version.
