Another two bite the dust…
19. Jan, 2009
1 Comment
O R Tambo International Airport – It’s a trick question really – when does a plane crash without actually crashing? The answer: when it goes belly up. It’s a moot point as we wave a possible goodbye to Air Tanzania and Zambian Airways, both of whom have suspended operations for the forseeable future.
No one knows for sure what has happened, but in this time of global economic doom and gloom the sad fact is that there were not enough bums on each of those airline’s seats to pay the bills.
Now I have a lot of chums at Zambian Airways – they’ve been a personal fave of mine over the past three years because I’ve done a lot of work in Zambia, and have used their services loyally and with a happy heart.
Sure, its not been the best run of airlines, but hey, who are we to throw stones when we live in South African Airways’ huge glass house? And to be fair, I have always found the service on Zambian Airways to be good and the fares exceptionally favourable.
That is, until fuel surcharges and taxes outstripped the actual fare by more than 100%, making the low cost of actually getting to Lusaka disappear in a mire of extra expense far in excess of the published tariff.
And this, my friends and colleagues in the tourism arena, is the crux of where we find ourselves in Sunny SA right now. Has anyone noticed that January and February are looking somewhat light in numbers from the European homelands and those rather odd Yankee fellows? And why, do you suppose, that is?
Yay! There are some bright businessmen still left out there – you’re bang on – because while our exchange rate still offers great value for money, the cost of getting your backsides to SA, or for that matter anywhere, is just far too high.
I’d hazard a guess that Air Tanzania and Zambian Airways are just the beginning of what is going to be a very tough time for the airline industry. But, to be honest, by and large they deserve what they get. And we must bear a huge responsibility in all of this because we have let them get away with daylight robbery for years now.
While ticket prices have soared, service levels have largely plummeted and I don’t care what anyone says, profits are being made, hidden in the ridiculously high surcharges we are being forced to pay over and above the price of passage.
The result is empty planes, and, in some cases, “ghost” planes flying empty in order to maintain precious slots at major hubs across the world.
Let’s try and bring it down to brass tacks. If you had a shop selling bread and had thrown in your lot with the bread cartels, charging a small fortune for the most basic of necessities and no one was buying your bread, what would you have to do to save your business? Yay! Again you get it right, you clever tourism ouens you – drop your price.
Then everyone would come and buy all of your bread, every day.
It’s a simple law of business – if what you are selling is priced to go, it will go.
Ergo, if the airlines dropped their prices their planes would be full – and, in the case of the high traffic routes like London to Joburg – would require additional flights to meet the demand. And, unless my business sense is really out of whack – the increase in demand would make more money, even though the price of a ticket was lower.
You see, it’s all about something called volume. If you have a load of bread at R8 and you sell 10 a day your profits are marginal. But if you drop the price to R5 and sell 200 a day, you make a kak-huis full of money each and every day and will be hard-pressed to bake sufficient loaves to meet the demand.
So I have to ask the million-dollar question – what on earth are the airlines on? Can’t they see that they are strangling this industry in their blind desperation to make moolah when all they need to do is adjust their prices to make moolah and get the credit crunched public travelling again.
All it needs is one bright spark airline to take the plunge and say “Hey, I’m going to turn this economic downturn to my advantage and slash my fares to get my planes full on every route and if I do it right, I can bid for extra slots from the airlines which go belly up.”
Duh. It really is a no-brainer.
But then, there has been a sad lack of brains in the airline industry for a long time now.
Perhaps we all need to club together and buy some for them, before we’re all left grounded?
My name is Muzi Mohale a full-time travel blogger, your host at Travelwires.com responsible for all editorial on this blog. I blog about the travel and tourism industry in Africa. Apart from blogging about tourism, I also run 
BA seems to have got it right. BA’s recent incredibly cheap sale is probably as a result of a fall-off in ticket sales. If not for a fall in the oil price things would be looking very bad. 1time also just recently launched a sale.