Agents have expressed the need for clarity on booking options to secure FlySafair’s social distance seating option for their clients, and the airline has responded.
“Agents can book our ‘social distance seating option’ for their clients when making a new reservation using the Travel Management profile system on our website. This option will ensure that the middle seat next to the passenger on the aircraft is left open. This is available online for R750,” said head of sales and distribution, Kirby Gordon.
But, when booking on the GDS, this R750 middle seat option is not available.
“At this point this service is only available on our site and only when making a new reservation. It was some pretty sophisticated development that had to be done to get it right. Phase two will include the option to add the service after purchase,” explained Kirby.
“On the GDS, the same effect can be achieved by booking two seats and then logging in to our website and allocating them next to each other. The second should be booked as First Name: Extra and Last name: Seat to avoid them being cancelled as a duplicate booking – unfortunately the booking is at full fare,” he added.
GDS rebooking, cancellation
Kirby also provided some further clarity on bookings affected by the pandemic.
In addition to the flights that were cancelled during lockdown, bookings for flights on routes that are still prohibited have been cancelled up until the end of August. Vouchers are available for online bookings but the procedure for GDS bookings is different:
- In the GDS, agents will be able to reissue their tickets against new reservations without incurring penalties (no ADC-WF20/JNB/COVID19).
- By default, tickets are valid for six months but extensions will be considered on application to gdsqueries@flysafair.co.za.
- Alternatively, agents can apply for a refund for these tickets through the BSP.
- Refunds opened on June 8 and are subject to a 50% cancellation fee.
