SAX: Cape Town to Hoedspruit
 

I see SA Express are launching CPT/HDS - didn't they try this once before then drop the route??? - see Online Travel

Most of our foreign visitors come and do the Garden Route/Cape Town and then its on to the Lowveld for a game lodge trip so this should tie up well.
Sax used to do Cape Town-Sun City-Hoedspruit which had limited sucess.

The Cape Town to HDS market is limited, AirLink are making a killing on CPT MQP though...

All SAX will do is dilute traffic they would have got over JNB to HDS in any event.

You have it the wrong way around Deskjocky.

The route has been re-introduced based on requests from lodge operators in the area. Virtually all the lowveld bound pax travelling from CPT do so on Link. The price of Link's tickets on that route combined with connection hassles some lodges are experiencing via MQP are motivators for the re-introduction of the route.

I believe Link will experience a slight reduction in load factor on the CPT-MQP sector, rather than SAX on the JNB-HDS sector.

Reptile, you are most welcome to your opinion :), if one looks at the number of beds in a reserve like the Sabi Sands (the lodges that would use MQP) and the lodges in the Timbavati, Klaserie etc etc (who favour HDS) there is a marked difference.

Where I will agree is the transfer costs from MQP to the Timbavati, Klaserie etc is an absolute bugger- hence the a lot of the operators will route the traffic over JNB to HDS as opposed to MQP and then xfer to the lodge. Hence my view that the JNB-HDS leg will lose traffic to the CPT HDS one.

In the end the Tour Operator will work out where they make more money and push the traffic accordingly.

Time will tell I guess.