South African Airways has announced that is has pulled out of the Durban Cape Town route as of November 1, saying the route was not economically viable for SAA. Its low cost airline, Mango, will continue to serve the route.
This may possibly open the door to competitors like Kulula and 1Time to extract more revenue from the route, one of the primary leisure corridors in the country.
Traffic between Durban and Cape Town was largely limited to tourists and was price sensitive, SAA spokesman Fani Zulu told Sake24.com. It made more sense to leave the route to Mango, which was able to compete with other low-cost airlines.
SAA said it would leave the coastal Durban-Cape Town route to Mango and wanted to focus on travel into Africa which was proving more profitable. – Ridge Correspondent