New to the LCC game but not new to aviation, FlySafair launches its first flight this week on October 16.
CEO, Dave Andrews, told Tourism Update the response from the South African market has been good but that the travel trade was slow to get on board. “We’ve seen consistent growth, week on week, in ticket sales. Things are certainly headed in the right direction.” But Dave admitted there had been hesitance from the trade, who had the stance “when you start flying, then we’ll talk”.
However, unlike many other start-up low-cost carriers that have come and gone in the South African market, the airline has 40 years’ experience in the aviation industry. “Our biggest benefit is that this is not our only business and we’re not a true ‘new’ business. Safair has been around a long time; we have a lot of experience and assets. We’re not solely dependent on our low-cost operation,” Andrews  said. 
He added that the oil price seemed to be heading in the right direction, which boded well for all airlines. Another advantage was that Safair’s traditional business is outside the country, with dollar earnings, so the airline had a bit of a hedge against the exchange rate. 
FlySafair’s primary focus is to get operations running and then engage more travel agents. “It’s very difficult. With our fares priced the way they are, there’s not a great margin for commissions to be paid but we certainly believe there is a way we can do things together with the trade,” he said.
Meanwhile, with its pricing structure, FlySafair hopes to stimulate a new segment of the market. “If I look at the enquiries we’ve been getting through our call centre, there are a lot of first-time fliers and this is a market we’d like to see developed,” said Andrews. 
The airline will initially launch flights from Cape Town to Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and George. “It’s important to first get up and running and then we can look at connecting the dots domestically,” Andrews said. He added that the airline was interested in looking at regional operations but that was “quite down the line”.