PAXboy

whiskeyflyerYep - you got it!!! The experince of RyanAir is the one they will be drawing on.

Obviously they are buying market share at the moment with low prices and everyone does that. Remember when VS started on the LHR route? They soon found that demand was so high that their prices could drift upwards to meet SA/BA drifitng (slightly) down. Thereafter they can all rise together. This process is seen in almost all countries and I expect that we shall see it all again.

In the UK, where the LCC market is very established and has been through a round of consolidation already, we see that the LCCs such as EZY and FR are not always the lowest cost on a route. When you pick flights for comparison - then the LCC is always cheaper but when you pick flights for real (ie when you HAVE to travel on certain dates and times) then you may find surprises. The true LCCs build market share for those going on holiday who can book months ahead and then make money out of those who are travelling in the short term. Naturally, it will not be possible to see how Mango is actually doing until a year has gone by and the start up offers and the competing offers have happened and gone away.

I agree that the financing of a soft loan is suspicious but it is a battle their competitors cannot win. One can only presume that they have avoided using SAX for this due to historic contracts and seniority.

As to the paint job ... clever but VERY expensive. Expensive to design and to execute. I take this as another example of them having too much easy money as a true LCC does not waste that much money. One possibility is that they will scale it down in a couple of years time and only the first half dozen a/c will have this livery. This would also allow them to write down the high cost of this artwork to start-up costs.

putt for dough

Have heard that various people have been trying
in a mad frenzy to get tickets with flymango.com but
to no avail. Apparently their callcentre cant handle
the traffic and the website cant cope either.

To be expected I suppose?

PAXboy

Yes to be expected. They need to over stimulate demand so that they can get onto the TV news and papers for free advertising. How long these prices will last is anybodies guess, they will have factored the discounted fares into their first year's figures. For any startup company, this is a SOP.

fluffyfan

Good Stuff, lets see how a real low cost airline works not just clever marketing, Nationwide, Comair, 1time have been fighting with SAA for so long its about time SAA hit back....well done SAA....aka Mango.

Sorry Vernon, no new Cars for you this year, sorry 1time you may have to spend some money on maintenance, as for you Comair lets see how you like it, dont know if there is anyone left to sue.

No remorse here, have endured your wining and moaning about the old ogre SAA for too long, its about time SAA hit back and took a few foes down..........DJ what you think hey? good stuff

George Tower

I for one will be very interested to see how the SAA brand develops. It has got to be one of the strongest brands in SA, and yet it just seems to take hit after hit. Mango looks as if it could be a strong brand, but there is more to branding than orange aircraft.......but with the whole SAA operation now linked so closely to Mango, what does SAA stand for, what are we getting from them, who are they etc........


FF, I just want to counter your invective by suggesting to you that the logical outcome of your statement is 1. Job losses for pilots and other staff, 2. higher prices for consumers in the long run as a state owned/state run insolvent loss maker seeks to be a monopoloy.

reptile

.......at the expence of taxpayers.

Solid Rust Twotter

The other LCCs who have to make a profit to survive will be paying tax to prop up their competition who are under no such obligation.

Nope. Still doesn't sound right...

Q4NVS

Do not see any difference between that and the "Price Fixing" that was done between Kulula and 1Time until the arrival of Mango.

LCC's in SA were definitely not cheap, until 2 days ago.

reptile

It would be a mistake to confuse "supply and demand" with "price fixing".

Q4NVS

RT, you are possibly correct.

There is however a very thin line between the two - Referring to the fines (not so recently) imposed on Toyota SA and shortly after on a number of other Motor Manufacturers in SA (also by the Competitions Commission).

Competition is good - especially from the consumers point of view.

Lots of talk about the whole taxpayer's issue, which I do not wish to comment on. But hey, if that is the case, atleast lets get some "cheap" flights back from SARS...

Solid Rust Twotter

Only if the other LCCs get the same handouts as the competition they've been funding all along.

Deskjocky

All the bubbly has been drunk and the pretty girls wearing the new uniforms have gone home, its now time to make some money. There has been the expected response form the other LCC’s which is exactly what was planned for- they have been trying to soak up demand in the market with specials over the last few months in expectation of the launch but I think the guys really gave them a bit of a shock with the launch offer. The primary effect of this is that their counter is just a show- these specials have dried up all of their available inventory of the launch period so they have a handful of seats available to counter- who is talking misleading advertising now??? Its now time to see who are the real LCC’s in the market, all the prices are inclusive and there are lots of seats available- no seats are limited and the price will go up as they are sold BS that one of the “other” LCC’s spouts.
Mango is born, its up to the team to take it forward to the next level- of which I’m absolutely convinced they will- especially given the amount of money they have already generated, the market is hungry and they don’t care who they travel on if the price is right….
GT, the launch of Mango was the first step in SAA’s repositioning- no sense charging off into the sunset offering cut price tickets to the bucket and spade brigade with our cost structure, remember SAA is the only true network carrier in this market (as I’ve stated before even BA use our network more then they use Comair for feed as we use theirs etc) this positioning has never really been leveraged because of the preoccupation of keeping market share domestically. This leads me onto the whole debate about job cuts and down sizing – at this point in time we have INCREASED capacity domestically, regionally and internationally- the reason is simple, for example there is no way you are going to beat the Desert Carriers to Europe, the middle east and India on price- where you can get them is generating more feed for your network thus forcing them to source all their traffic in the centres they fly to. You cant leverage your network if its full of VFR’s you need capacity to play this game- this works for outbound as well as inbound. Essentially we would rather sell a cheap seat (and in some cases if they buy a high enough fare class on the long haul- we kick in the domestic FOC) to a person connecting onto a long haul flight than sell it to a point to point domestic leisure passenger. Of course that not going to be the total plan we still have a very strong corporate market which is key – they are also going to benefit from this. Coupled to all this is a new distribution strategy that will cut our distribution costs massively- savings we intend passing onto the customer base.
What all this will mean is more cheap flights for the locals, cost reductions for corporates coupled to a more focussed route network and more inbound tourists form the key markets. Seems like a plan to me!
Fluffy, it all looks bright orange!! And it looks good!

Deskjocky

It would be a mistake to take everything at face value, Comair started the charade with Kulula, have a look at their average fare on Kulula- its not that fare behind what they get on their BA brand- if you take into account the franchise fees they pay for the British Flag on the tail then it makes sense to channel more inventory through the “low cost” brand. I would not be surprised to see a few aircraft in their fleet go form green back to blue and white.

1Time are the only “genuine” low cost operators in the market- if they are what they say they are then this will only serve to drive their growth- remember only 5% of South Africans currently fly….. as Ive said before their primary challenge lies in meeting this growth- do they have the capital to drive the growth or are they operating on the preverbal “shoe string” in which case its all just a matter of time regardless of market forces.

That brings me to Nationwide, the way the place is run seems to leave one with the impression that all ol Vern is interested in- besides his racing car- is looking for ways to sue SAA- perhaps he sees this as the only way to really make money…..

beechbum

Check this out....

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1133053/M/

contraxdog

ATC: MANGO 069, Clear to land Rwy 03L and just confirm you have a volume control for that there paintjob....?

4HolerPoler

Latest:

Say - if you've got time why don't you try & get access, website or call center, & let us know how it goes. 4HP

I.R.PIRATE

Been trying online all day, still no joy. C'moooon dudes, things to see and people to do...

starliner

Apart from Nico, does anyone have any other names of key personnel/postholders?

Q4NVS

Once again today was a "Good" Marketing day for Mango...

As the saying goes: "Even bad publicity is good publicity"

Now if the other LCC guru's would just keep shut, they would not earn Mango half the publicity they do.

Full investigation and report in the Sunday Times page 5.
First item on Carte Blanche followed by 30min report plus live interview with Nico Bezuidenhout on SABC 3's Interface.

The best of them all is Mr. Novick jnr - what a bright spark he is.

Categorically claiming that Kulula was and still is the cheapest in the market...

This after the Sunday Times proved that even apart from the current price war (of which 1Time is/was the cheapest), Kulula remains the most expensive by R200 to R400.

The best mathematical excellence by Mr. Novick was also shown on both Carte Blanche and Interface.

"We as a company (including employees), pay R250 million per year in taxes. What concerns us is that R100 million of our money was used to start Mango..."

Even if Mango was started with taxpayers money as everyone would like to believe, I do suggest you fire your Accountant or Standard 4 maths teacher...

2006 SARS Income Budget = R446.4 billion
Kulula's contribution @ R250 million (including employees) = 0.0538%

Thus Mr. Novick, you only coughed up R53 800 at worst in order to give all taxpayers a fair share, which I am sure is what the Government would have done.

Deskjocky

Q4NVS, the guys are rolling on the floor with laughter- they are loving it- this just could not be better in terms of publicity, hopefully messers Novick and Orsmond can keep this up right up to the launch on November 15. Another unexpected spin off is that online sales are also going through the roof at mainline- seems all this attention has got the travelling public in a frenzy and they are now seeing just how much more expensive Kulula actually is in comparison to its competitors- even SAA.

All this just leaves me wondering how ACSA is going to handle all this additional traffic- imagine the parking situation!!!!