Nationwide did have a bigger market share on the JNB-GRJ route than what it's overall market share was domestically, which is said to have been just about 3% in their last 3 months, while on JNB-GRJ it was still probably at around 15%.
Btw, I feel this figures of domestic share is misleading, cause this then counts in other routes where other airlines isn't serving, which accounts for quite a significant amount of pax ie. JNB-BFN, JNB-MQP...it's more important of the share each airline has on each route...
Anyway, not much has been taken up by the other airlines, only that Kulula has ofcourse started using 737-400, but that would have happened anyway. And Airlink decided to continue flying on the route with BAe146, which just gets extended every now and then with 2 or 3 months, ie: for now it's untill September. 1time continued with their full schedule, instead of the planned reduction in service over the winter months.
BUT, ofcourse this is only for now during the lower season, in the past both Kulula and Nationwide would have cancelled flights on short notice due to low loads, mainly during May,June, end July and August...Kulula has not cancelled anything so far and isn't likely to, infact they even had 2 or 3 extra flights at the end of May.
So I think we'll really see some difference from October. Nationwide did offer the only business class on the route, which is still important for a few of the high-rollers living in the Garden Route. Thus I feel that it would be great if BA/Comair can return again, or then if SAA can re-introduce 1 daily flight at least. 1 A319 flight plus 2 SAX CRJ flights, add up to 220 seats, while the usual SAX scheduls has 3 Q400s = 222 seats...
Furthermore I'm taking a wild guess and saying that I believe that 1Time will increase flights again end October to at least 11 from the current 9, and Airlink from 4 to 6 BAe146 flights.