FASTJET SETS EYES ON FIRST INTERNATIONAL ROUTE TO JOHANNESBURG
(Posted 29th July 2013)
South Africa will be FastJet’s first international route from Tanzania, as the airline has indicated flights between Dar es Salaam and Johannesburg will commence on September 27th. FastJet will initially operate three flights per week, using their A319 for the 3 ½ hour flight, offering full service carrier South African Airways, for some time now alone on the route without competition, the prospect of having to drop fares to retain market share.
Richard Bodin, COO of FastJet, whom this correspondent met recently at the Routes Africa meeting in Kampala, was quoted to have said: ‘For some time the Dar es Salaam to Johannesburg route has only been operated by one airline and the lack of competition has created inflated fares. FastJet will substantially reduce the average fare and in doing so will encourage more leisure and business traffic between Tanzania and South Africa’.
Precision Air, which has been holding the route rights as designated carrier from Tanzania, did some time ago halt their flights to South Africa, leaving the route to South African Airways, which while flying daily kept fare levels up to a point where many passengers would rather fly with Kenya Airways via Nairobi or with RwandAir via Kigali in order to get more affordably deals. These two airlines will no doubt be watching the market entry of FastJet on the Johannesburg route with hawk eyes too to see how their own connecting traffic to South Africa might be affected.
A regular source in Dar es Salaam quipped:’I hope they will this time state ticket prices and not fares, to which then all those other charges have to be added, so that the market has a true measure of what they charge against the charges of SAA, KQ and WB. It should in fact be to their advantage to give the public a direct comparison and not needing calculators again to work out what the final cost will be’.
No launch fares or ticket cost have yet been announced but are expected to be published shortly, when bookings are opening on July 31st. Watch this space.
5 Responses
Wolfgang
Delighted that you picked this up.
We note your comments re the previous incumbent on this route; lets hope we can (re)stimulate demand – as per our successes on the domestic routes.
Fingers crossed!
Richard
Pleasure Richard!
Thanks for reading my blog.
W.
We wish to know more about fast jet,what about Mbeya,do you have any plans and what about the prices.
FastJet presently operates an Airbus A319 which serves Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro and Mwanza. Some of the other domestic airports in Tanzania are not equipped to have such a plane land or be handled. Richard Bodin, COO of FastJet, at the Routes Africa conference recently did say that eventually FastJet will review their fleet composition, perhaps with the view to acquire aircraft capable of flying to places like Mbeya.
Thank you for reading my blog.
W.
this will help a lot as when one has a go and return safari,will be of great importance wadau.