In the case of the Cape Town and Durban service, capacity has actually increased, says Desmond O’Connor, kulula.com Chief Commercial Officer. Pre-COVID, the airline operated one flight per day on the route.

Daily Cape Town – Durban flight times are as follows:

• CPT-DUR operates at 07h00 and 11h45
• DUR-CPT operates at 13h20 and 18h25

Says O’Connor: “The timings of our new services between Cape Town and Durban are perfect for the Cape Town corporate market, as well as provide flexibility for SME and leisure passengers who choose to fly at peak or off-peak times.”

In addition to completing the Golden Triangle between Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, the additional capacity meets the expected high demand over the December festive season break.

“This is a highly popular route, particularly over weekends and school holidays,” O’Connor adds. “Currently we have over 10,000 passengers booked in November and over 3,000 for December already. Further, members of partner programmes can now fly kulula.com on the full network.”

kulula.com’s flexible Branded Fares offer a range of options for every kind of traveller:

• Fly Light: A hop-on, hop-off option for those with only cabin bags offering the best possible fares. A change of booking fee of R299 applies.
• Pack & Go: An all-round option to suit most traveller’s needs including one piece of checked luggage weighing up to 20kg and two free booking changes.
• Fully Loaded: A fully flexible option allowing unlimited booking changes, two checked bags and Q-Jump to speed-up check-in procedures.

“Ease of travel and convenience are a priority for kulula.com. For our taller kulula.com fans, Stretch Zone seats are available for passengers needing extra leg room, while the option of cheaper Branded Fares for passengers who don’t need to check-in luggage, as well as Q-Jump for priority boarding remain firm favourites,” O’Connor says.

Online bookings can be made both on the website and through the new app, which saves on the service fee for bookings made through the call centre. Passengers can then also self-service their own bookings online, again saving on call centre fees should they wish to make an easy change.

“With the restoration of our route network to full capacity, the kulula.com team is fired up and ready to play their part in connecting people with people and delivering affordable, simple, easy and fun travel so our passengers get to go places,” O’Connor concludes.

The Board of Airline Representatives of South Africa (BARSA), representing foreign carriers, and the Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) representing local and regional airlines, warn that more than half of the 472 000 South African jobs in aviation, tourism and associated sectors, will be lost if international travel and tourism remains shut.

“We have successfully flattened the COVID-19 infection curve and we are ready to implement the agreed global measures to enable the safe resumption of international air travel.  Having saved lives, now is the time to save livelihoods,” says Zuks Ramasia, CEO BARSA.

“With about US$9.4 billon or 3.2% of GDP supported by air travel and tourism, opening the borders is crucial to the economy’s recovery and future growth. We need to demonstrate that South Africa is open and safe for business and leisure travel.  If we don’t get people flying again, the economy will be severely hampered,” she adds.

AASA CEO, Chris Zweigenthal, says “About 270 000 South African aviation and associated travel and tourism-related jobs are at risk due to the closure of international travel and tourism.   The lack of international directly affects the viability and sustainability of our airports, air navigation and airspace management, meteorological and aviation safety oversight infrastructure services as well as businesses of all sizes across the entire value chain.  Without flights and passengers, there is no revenue, which means no jobs, no spending in the local economy and an even deeper shortfall in tax revenues to enable Government to keep the actual and proverbial lights on”.

“Mr President, open the borders and empower the officials so they can put the necessary resources in place so that we can get back to work and contribute to repairing the economy before the damage is permanent,” he adds.

Aviation biosecurity protocols render quarantines redundant

Under the guidance and scrutiny of the South African Civil Aviation Authority’s (SACAA) and Department of Health, biosecurity protocols and operating procedures have been applied to domestic flights. These are based on a set of global measures drawn up jointly by a global task group of experts from the UN World Health Organisation (WHO), it’s sister body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Airports Council International and various leading public health and infection control institutes.  South Africa was represented on the international task group. The measures it defined are also designed to be applied globally to international air travel.

“These protocols obviate the need for quarantines, which, as we have seen in other markets, are self-defeating as they deter people from traveling.  Besides which, there are no quarantine requirements for people moving between known infection hotspots within South Africa,” observes Zweigenthal.

“Unlike many other transport modes, aviation is highly regulated. Government, legislators and regulators should trust their own systems. The protocols in place and which are to be applied to international flights, are the ones they helped to craft and which they approved,” adds Ramasia.

“At the same time, this does not absolve passengers from acting responsibly.  Face masks must be worn, hand regularly sanitised and social distancing observed.  And if you don’t feel well, don’t even go to the airport!   If you need to familiarise yourself with what to do and expect, check with the airlines and airports, or IATA’s Fly with Confidence site, which give you all of the information you might need ,” she advises.

Tourism Tuesday – Airbridge over Troubled Waters

The South Africa is Travel Ready Collective hosted a panel discussion on 15 September with aviation stakeholders to discuss the importance of the aviation sector and the need for a definitive reopening date.

Panelists included ACSA, AASA, BARSA, Etihad Airways and Ethiopian Airline.

Click here to view the recording.

From tsunamis to ash clouds and global financial crises, the travel industry has seen its share of setbacks over the past few years. The industry has always handled these events with admirable resilience and managed to bounce back quickly from each disaster.

COVID-19 is different. The global pandemic has had an unparalleled and devastating impact on the aviation industry with airlines grounding their entire fleets for months. Over 60% of flights were cancelled worldwide, with bookings in April 2020 alone dropping a staggering 95% compared to the same month the previous year, and 75 million jobs are said to be at risk. Yet there is light at the end of the tunnel as some countries have started to open their borders and air travel is tentatively resuming.

Although the future is uncertain for everyone – and especially for those in the travel industry – history teaches us that change is inevitable and unavoidable. As we see a cautious return to the skies, and we rethink the future of the industry together, innovation will be key to overcome the challenges and emerge stronger from the crisis. 

Looking to the future, we foresee a number of potential trends for the aviation industry. Innovation through solutions like Amadeus Airline Platform, a mission-critical platform that forms the technology backbone for airlines, can help carriers better position themselves for a prosperous future.

The Amadeus Airline Platform connects together Amadeus’ comprehensive offering for airlines, including the revolutionary Altéa Passenger Service System (PSS). Underpinned by big data analytics, machine learning algorithms, and cloud computing, the platform enables airlines to harness the full power of Amadeus technology to inspire, travelers and grow their business. 

1.       Focus on delivering a frictionless traveller experience

Simple activities in our lives like a trip to the grocery store are now difficult, risky, or even prohibited, and it is therefore understandable that travellers will be hesitant or anxious to board a flight in this new COVID world. To rebuild traveller trust, it is imperative that airlines address these fears while they continue to focus on delivering a seamless traveller experience.

Technology lies at the heart of this goal. Through innovative solutions like the Altéa PSS, customer preferences can be addressed at every stage of the reservation process, as airlines can use secure customer data to customize services. For passengers, this means faster and simpler check-in procedures as well as re-accommodation in a matter of seconds in times of disruption.

During the current period of uncertainty, relevant real-time information is more important than ever before. Amadeus technology allows airlines to support customers throughout the journey, providing real-time, personalized alerts to inform of flight changes, services or offers.

2.       Improve airline systems to allow for agility

COVID-19 has effectively reset the travel industry. Every tourism company and airline is taking a hard look at its operations, re-assessing its ways of working and adapting to the ‘new normal’. In this new world, the ability to make fast decisions has become crucial.

Over the past few months, many airlines scaled back operations and refocused some of their fleets to support repatriation flights and medical supply shipments. Technology played a critical role in helping carriers achieve agile aircraft configurations.

Airlines repurposed their aircraft by adding cargo space to flight cabins and some added extra space around passengers and families to apply maximum safety measures. Key to this agility was the seamless integration between airline systems from inventory to reservation, departure control, and offer management; all core PSS capabilities.

Integration across the Amadeus Altéa suite enabled airlines to easily deploy real-time seating, cabin, and cargo reconfigurations. Business rules and other setting adjustments could all be configured from a single user interface for automatic and flexible application across the airline’s entire network, by market, origin, and destination and other variables.

Looking to the future, fully integrated systems also mean that even if unforeseen events like last-minute aircraft changes occur during operational windows, airlines can immediately and automatically reseat passengers and adjust weight and load balance. With end-to-end automated aircraft configuration and reconfiguration, airlines avoid expensive, time-consuming and resource-intensive manual intervention.

3.       Collaboration and consolidation in aviation

It is likely that consolidation and concentration will lead to a major industry reshaping in all regions. Some airline groups are expected to become stronger, accelerating strategic investments, while others may not recover.

We also anticipate a number of significant changes in the aviation landscape with new codeshare and interline agreements between different parties.

Smart airline inventory management solutions, like Altéa, use advanced availability management techniques, dynamic customer identification and sophisticated airline policy controls to automate flight schedules, codeshare agreements, re-accommodation and seating. This helps maximize airline network yield, increasing revenues and improving efficiency.

Collaboration has been important through these past months, as aviation stakeholders along the value chain unite to ensure the survival of the industry. This is where the community element of Altéa comes in. Because airline PSSs share common processes, Altéa delivers a common core functionality to a community of airlines, providing leading technology at a much lower cost. This approach is a departure from the high cost, on-going IT development within each airline. And thanks to Altéa’s open systems design, Amadeus is able to develop additional IT solutions for airlines such as loyalty management, revenue management and financial management systems.

This collaboration is also due to the founding principles of our Amadeus Airline Platform, which is an agile and open system, enabling third parties such as start-ups to collaborate and develop on top of Amadeus technology to meet airline needs. This approach fast-tracks development from concept to market and allows Amadeus’ airline customers to always benefit from the best technology and most innovative concepts in the marketplace.

4.       Explore smart revenue models

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released  analysis showing that the airline industry’s global debt could rise to $550 billion by year-end; a $120 billion increase over debt levels at the start of 2020.

With these alarming numbers, it is clear that modern, state of the art revenue management will be crucial for airlines to move quickly to recovery. Amadeus has incorporated artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms into its revenue management solutions. Although these solutions often rely on historical data to understand behaviours, Altéa has shown great resilience in the current market context, building models where there is no precedent upon which to rely. 

Altéa detects the patterns of recovery at different market, country and route levels, and these patterns help airlines make quick, efficient, and smart revenue management business decisions.

—

Despite the aviation industry navigating its greatest challenge to date, airlines can still use this time to prepare for the future. The Altéa suite is widely used by leading airlines in the world, large and small. The newest airline to have adopted the Altéa suite, TAAG Angola Airlines, the flag carrier of the Republic of Angola, recently said it is excited to be able to streamline its operations thanks to Amadeus’ technology.

“In these times of uncertainty, we are reassured by dependable partners like Amadeus, that we can rely on to take our airline to its next stage of growth. We look forward to getting back to flying and continuing our expansion drive in the region and internationally with Amadeus at our side,” says Chief Executive Officer for TAAG Angola Airlines, Dr Rui Carreira.

ALL PART OF THE LA PREMIÈRE SERVICE 

All Air France La Première guests enjoy exclusive attention from the company’s staff and tailor-made services. On departure or arrival at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, the Hertz DriveU service is included at no extra cost in the offer dedicated to customers travelling in the company’s most exclusive cabin. This service will soon be extended to other La Première destinations.

All La première customers enjoy a personalized welcome throughout their journey: a Hertz DriveU transfer service with private, welcomed by a porter at the airport as soon as they get out of their car, accompanied to the La Première lounge to relax, or enjoy a bite to eat with a culinary creation by Alain Ducasse at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, then a stress-free boarding at the passenger’s convenience, before their tailor-made flight in their La Première suite.

The service can be booked by calling the telephone number dedicated to La Première customers up to 24 hours before the transfer.

The paper, A Holistic Approach: Insight, Preparedness and Assistance, proposes that aviation organisations incorporate these three critical elements to best secure their resources, operations and people.

The paper supports calls from leading industry associations, including IATA and ICAO, calling for stronger partnerships between industry stakeholders to develop measures to counter threats to aviation.¹

The three elements featured in the paper are core to an integrated approach to aviation security; accounting for the complex interdependencies among aviation stakeholders.

Danny Spender, Associate Director of Security Risk Consulting and Aviation at Control Risks: 
“As aviation organisations expand routes to meet increasing demand; the number, type and complexity of these stakeholder relationships will grow exponentially. All of these stakeholders and their security initiatives are interdependent. Remove, marginalise, or neglect one component and the system falters.”

A Holistic Approach defines Insight as the process a company undergoes to fully understand their operations and business needs in a volatile, complex and/or uncertain environment. Preparedness is the application of appropriate mitigation efforts to ensure vulnerabilities are minimised or, best case scenario, eliminated. Assistance is centred on supporting their people during security breaches and/or incidents. 

John Cauthen, Aviation Security Director at MedAire: 
“Real world issues need real world support. At the core of all aviation operations are people. Flight departments must have processes in place, as part of their aviation security programmes, to mitigate and respond to risks affecting their people and operations.”

MedAire has assisted the aviation industry for more than 30 years. Today, they work with more than 150 airlines and support business flight departments around the world. With their partner, Control Risks, MedAire provides services to enhance aviation security insight, preparedness and assistance.

Download the paper here.