South Africa: Rapid Lanseria Growth for Kulula Flights
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
10 October 2008
Posted to the web 10 October 2008
Julius Baumann
Johannesburg
DESPITE an airline industry slow-down, low-cost carrier kulula.com will double their flights from Lanseria International Airport to Cape Town and Durban.
From October 28, kulula.com will boost its Lanseria to Cape Town flights from 20 to 35 a week, with weekday flights up from three to six and Sunday flights from one to five. The y will also increase flights from Lanseria to Durban to two a day, except on Saturdays.
"Lanseria has shown tremendous growth for us, as more people wake up to the fact that Lanseria offers far greater convenience and lower costs than OR Tambo International Airport," Gidon Novick, joint-CEO of Comair, operators of kulula.com, said this week.
Novick said while kulula.com has seen little or no growth in demand for its flights from OR Tambo to Cape Town and Durban, demand for additional capacity was surging at Lanseria.
"While some passengers opted to fly from Lanseria rather than OR Tambo, it is the easy access Lanseria offers northwe st Johannesburg passengers that has driven growth," said Novick.
While adding new flights , kulula.com will drop daily flights to Port Elizabeth, due to low load factors on that route . "We perhaps added P E too soon and should have concentrated on Cape Town and Durban first," said Novick.
Kulula.com's expansion at Lanseria has prompted airport management to explore further facilities . "We are looking at adding to the terminal building and other s, but will evaluate the success of kulula.com's new routes before making a firm decision," said airport manager Gavin Sayce this week.
One change could be Lanseria's parallel runways making way for a larger single runway, allow ing larger aircraft.
Sayce said Lanseria management was keen on bringing other airlines to the airport, but any discussions we re on hold until the Competition Commission ha d completed its investigation into Lanseria's agreement with Comair.
Relevant Links
Earlier this year, rival low-cost airline 1Time lodged a complaint against Comair and Lanseria over an alleged anti-competitive agreement preventing other airlines flying from there .
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