South African low-cost airline FlySafair is pondering whether it should add international flights – to other Southern African countries – to its currently all- domestic route network. “We are looking at it,” reports company CEO Elmar Conradie. “But it’s in its infancy – at the due diligence stage. What business model should we follow for such flights? And we’ve got a lot going on in South Africa now. But we are definitely looking at it.

“We’ll always have plans to add to our route network,” he pointed out. “The principle of low-cost carriers is to get economies of scale – more routes, more flights mean lower costs per seat.”

The company recently celebrated its latest addition to its domestic route network with the landing of its first scheduled flight at Lanseria International Airport, which lies south-west of Pretoria and north-west of Johannesburg. The flight originated in Cape Town. “We’re very excited about Lanseria,”he affirms. “It’s just about the last destination in South Africa we can add, with our aircraft. We believe there’s a lot of growth at this airport. At OR Tambo [International Airport], from October, we’ll be up to seven flights a day to Cape Town alone. We need somewhere else [in Gauteng] to grow.”

Currently, the airline will operate between Lanseria and Cape Town twice (each way) daily, adding a third flight in October. It will also operate a route between Lanseria and George (in the Western Cape). FlySafair now operates ten routes to seven destinations. “Basically, we have all the major [domestic] destinations now,” he adds, “Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, George [and] Durban, and Lanseria is now the seventh one. We’re quite pleased where we are at the moment in our passenger numbers. That’s just our existing routes. Year-on-year, we’ve seen phenomenal growth.”

The company operates a “totally demand-based” business model. The basic fare between Johannesburg and Cape Town is R599, but, if the demand for a flight increases, then so does the fare for that particular flight. Passengers are only charged for check-in baggage if they actually have check-in baggage. “We do follow the low-cost model, giving people what they want,” he states. “And we maximise the usage of both aircraft and staff.” Thus, the airline maintains a strict 25-minute turnaround schedule, between the aircraft pulling into an airport bay to unload passengers and being pushed back from the bay with a new complement of passengers.

The airline was launched two years ago with just two aeroplanes. Now it has a fleet of eight (the eighth arrived at the end of the last week of July), with a ninth to come in October. Its fleet will then comprise six Boeing 737-400s and three new-generation 737-800s. “At the moment, the low fuel prices mean that we don’t have to rush to replace the [less fuel efficient] -400s,” notes Conradie.

In his address marking the first flight into Lanseria, he highlighted FlySafair’s success to date. “It’s been a tremendous growth, a tremendous achievement. The parent company of FlySafair, Safair, marked its fiftieth anniversary last year. It’s this experience which has allowed us to grow so fast. We hope that we’ll shake up the market here [at Lanseria] a little bit!

“On the routes we fly, we’ve seen air ticket prices drop by about 39%. After two years, we’re selling at exactly the same prices as at our launch and our competitors now charge the same fares. We aim to provide our customers with options, both in services and destinations,” he emphasised. “We had the best on-time performance in 2015.” The company has also demonstrated the best on-time performance so far this year (the data is provided by the airports).