With domestic flight capacity down by a third, South African corporate travellers have had to reconsider domestic corporate agreements with preferred airlines and reassess just where their loyalties lie now that they are operating in a market with so few choices.
Comair's collapse dragged the country's available capacity down by 40%, bringing its corporate deals with many agencies crashing down.
A procurement manager for a university told Travel News that discussions were under way with the institution’s TMC to determine where the best corporate deals lay in the current environment. “We had a lot invested in BA Comair which has now fallen away and we are looking for a good corporate loyalty deal with another domestic/regional airline but the problem is there are so few flights available. It’s often not possible to be loyal to only one carrier because of availability so our corporate loyalty is immediately diluted.”
Kirby Gordon Chief Marketing Officer of FlySafair told Travel News that the airline’s key aim was to keep costs down across the board to ensure that it could always deliver the very best price point to the customer, whether it was leisure, corporate, wholesale or anything in between, including corporate deals. “We are very conscious of anti-competitive behaviour, which was, of course, the subject of the famous settlement between SAA and Comair. Our view has always been that each channel needs to pay for itself and that we will always ‘pass through’ the best fare we can in that channel. The parties that manage sales on behalf of corporate clients then earn transparently through fees, true to the immense value that they offer their clients, with no hidden earnings.”
Carla Da Silva, Executive Manager Sales and Marketing at Airlink, explained that the airline had a corporate value proposition in place for corporate clients. “The upfront discount level on airfares is based on the company travel spend. The discount is applicable to the network and in economy and business class.”
Lift Airline CEO, Jonathan Ayache, said the airline’s 'LIFT wallet' not only enabled flexibility and allowed for free changes, but also offered bulk wallet top-ups with a discount of up to 10% for corporate clients.
The procurement manager added: “We will only in future consider corporate agreements that include interline agreements with international carriers so that we can benefit from the international flights to top up our deals on domestic flight usage. If the situation changes and more domestic carriers put on flights and agree to enter into corporate agreements, we will look at the situation again.”
