Johannesburg to Cape Town SouthAfrica.TO survey

21 Sept 2007 flights

surveyed on 25 Aug 2007

Twenty20 cricket rockets Joburg to Cape Town flight prices

1time airline British Airways Kulula Airline Mango Airline Nationwide SAA R1399 R1532 R1251 sold out R1241 R2026

We like to call this a cheap flights survey, but today the flight prices are anything but cheap. Clearly the 21st of September is not the time to hop onto a cheap flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Amongst all the very expensive flights Nationwide Airlines offers the cheapest flight - Nationwide flight 740 leaves Johannesburg on the 21st September at 1830 and arrives in Cape Town at 2030; the flight costs R1241.

The perfect storm

The table below illustrates how dramatically flight prices from Johannesburg to Cape Town have increased.

Survey date Flight date Flight route Average price 21 April 2007 18 May 2007 Flights from Johannesburg to Cape Town R705 2 June 2007 29 June 2007 Flights from Johannesburg to Cape Town R756 15 July 2007 10 August 2007 Flights from Johannesburg to Cape Town R568 25 August 2007 21 September 2007 Flights from Johannesburg to Cape Town R1,490

Today's flight prices are nearly double the next most expensive flight prices we've surveyed on the Joburg to Cape Town route. Indeed, it's the most expensive flight prices we've surveyed on any route in South Africa this year (second most expensive was an average cost of R1098 for flights from Cape Town to Durban in June). The start of holidays, a long-weekend, the usual shortage of seats on a Friday - add to that a Twenty20 Cricket World Cup Semifinal at Newlands (Cape Town) on the 22nd September....and you have the perfect storm. The moral of the story - (copy Jacques Kallis and) try to avoid travelling to the following venues:

24th September 2007 - Johannesburg - Pro Twenty Cricket World Cup final

22nd September 2007 - Durban - Pro Twenty Cricket World Cup semi-final

22nd September 2007 - Cape Town - Pro Twenty Cricket World Cup semi-final

11th - 20th September - Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg (detailed timetable)

Nationwide airlines does it again

Amongst the despair over the high prices it's easy to forget to give Nationwide airlines proper credit for a fantastic achievement - for the 5th week in a row, Nationwide has offered cheaper flight prices than any of the flight prices which 1Time, Mango, Kulula.com, British Airways, Interlink or SAA could muster. For the record, here's the details of Nationwide's winning streak:

Mango Airlines sold out

Mango Airlines is sold out of flights again. Most airlines push their flight prices up as they run out of seats, so as to sell the last seats for greater profit. Mango airlines, however, is clearly not being run on a commercial basis - and it's not just South Africans that are being subsidised - a lot of foreigners will have bought airline tickets to the Twenty20 cricket world cup (subsidised by South Africa's labouring taxpayers).

Cheap flights from London to Cape Town

We conducted a survey of prices of flights from London to Cape Town. Just as in the previous survey we had conducted on this route, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines offered the cheapest flight prices from London to Cape Town (Air France is in partnership with them, so they offered the same deal).

Johannesburg to Durban flights

We've spruced up our Johannesburg to Durban flights site with a photo taken from the top of the Holiday Inn Garden court on Durban's beachfront (see right - somebody's catching a nice ride on the wave in front of the pier). We've also added some information on driving from Johannesburg to Durban and taking a train from Johannesburg to Durban (who says we don't cater to those who don't like flying). While on the topic of Durban is it not time that 1Time Airline moved its base to Durban - like One Time dude, surf's up!

Kulula to operate flights to London?

Comair Limited, applied to the International Air Services Licensing Council to operate flights from Johannesburg to London - an extremely competitive route (one on which SAA has been making losses). Typically, low-cost carriers are not as successful at long-haul routes because of the bigger role which input costs (like fuel) play. However, Kulula airline has not been shy to expand its routes, the latest new route being flights from Johannesburg to Mauritius. Gidon Novick (joint chief executive of Comair) said that Comair would be seeking 2 wide-bodied planes if it was granted a licence to fly the route (it is theoretically possible that he could fly the Johannesburg-London route under the British Airways brand, but this would be in direct competition with British Airways UK).

Overweight Mangos

Pprune.org is a website where pilots go to continue their gossip outside the cockpit. In a thread the pilots surmise why (other than stupidity) several Mango flights from Cape Town to Bloemfontein have been overweight fuel and therefore had to fly wider routes from Cape Town to Bloemfontein in order to burn off the excess fuel (so much for low cost!).

Skytrax awards to SAA, Kulula & British Airways

A regular SouthAfrica.TO reader, "CE GUY", reminded us that we hadn't pointed out which airlines won the 2007 Skytrax awards for best airlines; so for the record:

Singapore Airlines was voted best airline in the world.

British Airways flights won the award for best airline in Europe, best airline operating transatlantic flights and came in 10th best overall (just behind Emirates flights ).

South African Airways (SAA) was voted best airline in Africa (we disagree, we think British Airways is better than SAA).

Kulula airline was voted the best low cost carrier in South Africa (and indeed, in Africa). We disagree with Skytrax, we think 1Time Airline is marginally better than Kulula.com (if you can look past the fun and games).

Air Berlin was voted the best low cost carrier in Europe.

1Time airline - fighting the good fight

Alluding clearly to Kulula.com's recent decision to exclude airport taxes from their airfares, 1Time airline writes on their website: "unlike some of our competitors, these fares include all taxes". The other culprits in excluding airport taxes are South African Airways and Interlink airline.

Mango Airlines web traffic

For those interested in statistics, below is a graph which provides an indication of the % of web traffic which Mango Airlines is reaching through its website. The big spike in traffic in November 2006 is from when Mango Airlines launched.

Fancy a flight from George to Bloemfontein?

Thanks to input from a reader (George Flights!!!) we upgraded our list of airlines operating flights from George to Bloemfontein to reflect the fact that South African Airlink is operating non-stop flights on Sundays.

International airline news

Atlasjet Airline flight hijacking

As if there weren't enough danger flying in planes, passengers have to put up with hijackers and terrorists. We reported a few weeks back on the Glasgow Airport Terror Attack, now we've got a hijacking of an Atlasjet airline flight in Turkey. It would be nice if a few weeks could pass by without muslim extremists trying to destroy the aviation industry.

a Ryanair flights quote

"It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order." Tony Ryan quoting Machiavelli in his proposal for a new Irish Airline; as described in Michael O'Leary's biography by Alan Ruddock, "A Life in Full Flight: The story of the man who made Ryanair take off". Ryanair flights were the brainchild of Tony Ryan, an Irish millionaire.

Holy flight! Vatican kicks off with pilgrim flights

While 1Time are "More nice, less price" and Kulula.com are "more than an airline", a Vatican-based charter plane has more lofty ambitions. Mistral Air plans to fly Catholic pilgrims to holy spots like Mexico's shrine of the Madonna of Guadalupe; and will have emblazoned on the plane the slogan "I'm Searching for Your Face, Lord".

Irish skies are smiling

We continue to expand our routes. We are now covering much more of the beautiful Irish skies - flights from London to Dublin, flights from Manchester to Dublin as well as flights from Glasgow to Dublin. And while covering Irish flights, in the off chance that Manto reads these pages, we decided to share the Irish excuse - I didn't drink a drop of whisky (I only drank whiskey).



Updated international flight routes

It's probably not the best time of year to go there, but we've updated our list of airlines operating flights from London to Palma de Mallorca (in Spain), to include Thomsonfly.

Kang Pacific Airlines

Kang Pacific Airlines is set to launch operations from the UAE in October, becoming the 5th Airline to be based in the UAE (the others are Emirates, Air Arabia, Etihad Airways, and RAK Airways). Kang Pacific Airlines will be based at Fujairah International Airport, in the most eastern of the seven emirates.

British Airways taunts European competitors

British Airways plans for the summer of 2008 (that is the northern hemisphere summer) include launching transatlantic flights to the USA from European capital cities. Speculation is that British airways plans to operate:

flights from Brussels to New York

flights from Madrid to New York

flights from Paris to New York

This is likely to lead to a turf war with Air France and Lufthansa, who may respond by offering direct flights from London to New York.

Warning: include(../../../../userinput.php5): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /usr/www/users/southvryrd/transport/Airlines/cheapest-flight-survey/2007/20070825-Johannesburg-to-Cape-Town-flight-prices.php on line 285 Warning: include(../../../../userinput.php5): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /usr/www/users/southvryrd/transport/Airlines/cheapest-flight-survey/2007/20070825-Johannesburg-to-Cape-Town-flight-prices.php on line 285 Warning: include(): Failed opening '../../../../userinput.php5' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/php') in /usr/www/users/southvryrd/transport/Airlines/cheapest-flight-survey/2007/20070825-Johannesburg-to-Cape-Town-flight-prices.php on line 285 Warning: include(../../../../permission-to-use-article.php5): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /usr/www/users/southvryrd/transport/Airlines/cheapest-flight-survey/2007/20070825-Johannesburg-to-Cape-Town-flight-prices.php on line 286 Warning: include(../../../../permission-to-use-article.php5): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /usr/www/users/southvryrd/transport/Airlines/cheapest-flight-survey/2007/20070825-Johannesburg-to-Cape-Town-flight-prices.php on line 286 Warning: include(): Failed opening '../../../../permission-to-use-article.php5' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/php') in /usr/www/users/southvryrd/transport/Airlines/cheapest-flight-survey/2007/20070825-Johannesburg-to-Cape-Town-flight-prices.php on line 286