JNB and LOS are primarily business routes whereas CPT is primarily leisure/VFR so the revenue management models are different. The highest revenue is attracted on traffic originating outside Southern Africa, due to the lower value of the ZAR fares, particularly when onward connections are taken into consideraton and prorates have to be applied. The peak traffic season for southbound leisure traffic into IATA subzone 232 (Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe) is the northern hemisphere winter, hence the traditional VS ops into CPT OCT-MAR (I'm not sure when it ends this year but probably 27 MAR).
There is still potential for VS to operate into CPT year round. The classic mistake though would be to do so on a frequency of 3 a week, which does not give the flexibility that the higher yield passengers require of a daily rotation, so it's a bit of a Catch 22.
Edit : Corrected error.
Edit :
Just checked, and somewhat ironically I see that they are operating daily until late March and then three rotations a week until late April with the 340-300. It suits me .... but whether they will make money is another story. Hopefully they have made the right decisions.
Last edited by Capetonian; 5th Jan 2014 at 12:26.