SA airliners cash in on World Cup fever

The next two months are proving to be boom time for two airlines flying into South Africa -- South African Airways and Kenya Airways.

The current form of the Indian cricket team notwithstanding, flights to South Africa from India for the ICC Cricket World Cup spanning across February and March are almost booked to full capacities.

In fact, flights on days when India matches are being played are already sold out completely.

Nalini Gupta, general manager ( India), South African Airways said, "We have received a good response and have put in place an adequate increase in capacity in line with the surge in demand."

Elaborating on the airlines strategy to cater to the additional demand, Gupta said the airline, which has direct flights from India to South Africa, has deployed 8 additional aircraft on the sector to cope up with the heavy rush.

The airline has also reconfigured its fleet and deployed Boeing-747 in place of the earlier Boeing-767 after having renegotiated bilateral agreements with the civil aviation ministry.

Kute Fred Kiege, area manager - India & Sri Lanka, Kenya Airways, which also operates flights to South Africa via Nairobi said, "Our flights, especially on days when India matches are being played, are almost sold out. The World Cup fever would definitely boost our bottomline this year."

However with flight bookings being co-related with the availability of match tickets the initial hype and rush has now tapered a bit since very few match tickets are available.

The increased traffic is being largely driven by the participation of corporates who are offering consumer promotions and dealer incentives packaged around the World Cup event.

About 70 per cent of the total bookings have come from companies say travel agents.

"However the earlier hype over flight bookings has now subsided a bit due to a combination of factors, including the recent lacklustre performance of the Indian team. But in any case almost no tickets are available at present," Suresh Bathija, president aviation council, Travel Agents Association of India, said.