Nationwide/ Kulula/ SAA/ BA Comair/ One Time - pax comments

[Jangys]

Wanted to fly to durban today. After doing the necessary shopping around the airlines, Nationwide Airlines only had three flights to Durban.

After some flirtation, the lady on the other end of the phone told me they do not have enough crew. She told me that most of their pilots reached the 1000 hr mark for the year.

Also heard a rumour that almost half their 737 crew resigned.


Any threads???

[Gunship]

I flew with them on Sat night (LGW-JHB) and I have a LOT to say .... let me just have a good bottle of tassie's or two and my reply will come ;)

[BAKELA]

Lo Guns, "I have a LOT to say" - Hope it's not what I think it is? :confused:

[Woof etc]

Come on Guns, spit it out.

This is a rumour network after all.

[Gunship]

I will give Nationwide a fair time to respond to my e-mail first :ok:

[ASD]

Guns - so did Nationwide ever respond to your e-mail?

[SIC]

Lets hear it man!! Worked there myself so dont have an objective view but would like to hear how others see it now and in the future!!

[Gunship]

Guns - so did Nationwide ever respond to your e-mail?

They actually did ...

Hallo xxxxxx

Ek het jou korrespondensie verwys na ons Verekeningbestuurder vir 'n beslissing, en sal jou weer kontak sodra ek 'n antwoord ontvang het.

Groete

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Manager, Customer Care

Nationwide Airlines (Pty.) Ltd.

(+27 (11) 344-7240

(+27 (11) 327-6805 - Fax

[Gunship]

Situation : Gunss Jnr must fly to Jhb from Cape Town
Background : Due to a dispute with Nationwide they where not considered to get my $$$.
Time to go: 25 hrs before take off.

Nationwide

They owe me money / appology of some sorts before I think to fly with them again.

Kulula.com

In SA always my first choice.
Excellent booking system (normally).
I clicked on the easy system and got a flight for R499 on the time that I wanted.
I went through the credit card booking. And that was where it stopped ... it gives you a nifty chirp of blink once or twice and all is done .. well my red wine became hot and feckall happened.
I checked my online ct card balance and e-mail and nothing came ..
I went in again.
The same ticket is now R599 !!!
I try to book it and to no avail.
I phone Kulula and they admit they also have a small problem.
I asked the lady " by the way where are these 80 000 seats for R439.
She said click here and here and there.
She said : " Oh my gosh there are nothing"
So Kulula advertises 80 000 discounted seats and within a few hours of receiving my e-mail they are all sold out.
I went back again ... the cheapest ticket now is R669 via George !
Anyway - I could not book a ticket through Kulula - it just did not work.

Do yourself a favour and look online now ... BA is cheaper than Kulula ? What low cost airline is this then ?

Sad ...

BA (Comair)

Seeing that my freind RealOrca fly's them as well I needed to check.
I was quite impressed.
Tickets available at R601.00 - I think an arrangement of 4 flights for that price !

Impressive :ok:

Saa

Yik ... I know but a friend said they are cheap.

Well first of all when I wanted to book a ticket for the following day the booking system tells me I am not all there
Please make sure your travel dates are the future:rolleyes:

I eventually tried another way (through specials I think) and I got some horrible prices.

From R899 to R2120 !! (one way CT-JHB !)

Last but not least 1 TIME

They might drop a few spares while landing but man so easy I have never seen a booking.

I wonder if it took me 2 minutes.

R429

I went with him to the airport. Check in was a breeze.

He told me afterwards he will fly with them anytime.

So boys and gals do your homework - it is worth the few extra minutes :ok:

Cheers,

Gunsss

[Solid Rust Twotter]

Can't argue with you on that one, boet!:ok:

1Time is First Prize every time.... ;)

[Gunship]

Well mate unless proven otherwise they are the only real low cost airline for me at the moment and they will get my money :ok:

[Gunship]

Ok I see we are thrown under one topic.

Can the mod just add SAA to the subject line please.

Cheers

Gunsss

[saywhat]

Guns, I book on the net with all the airlines. I work for SAA, but most often it's cheeper to book on the net than to try to get a family member an ID75 (+it's confirmed) through the inhouse route. I must say that rescently all the airlines seem to be about the same, pricewise, but SAA & Kalula seem to have the more reliable sites. Too often I find 1 Time's site offline, or there is a problem with payment.:)

[wheels up]

Guns:

You didn't perhaps book your Kulula flight with a non-SA credit card?

Not sure if it is still the case, but a while back the system only accepted local cards due to a number of scams involving foreign credit cards and online bookings.

[Gunship]

Lo Mate,

Nope - SA Visa card. The girl admitted "we have quite a few problems"

I have booked many a flight with them and never a problem.

When I saw the rate changes I knew there was quite a problem.

I just looked now - Kulula is one of the most expensive again when I checked for a ticket for tomorrow PM.

Very strange ???

Cheers

Gunss

[captain cumulonimbus]

i've booked with kulula and 1Time a number of times,SA credit card each time,and i must say both are equally good,though i would tend to go for 1Time just because of the slightly more upmarket feel of the aircraft etc,even though they are predominantly much older.

On the topic of booking and seeing prices go up before your eyes,in April i tried to book FAJS-FACT return on Kulula and booked the leg down,then logged on 10 mins later having checked the prices.the return leg was now R150 more.

On the positive side for 1Time,was in CT with the (then) girlfriend.She had booked the tickets for us back to Gansgsters Paradise, but clever girl that she is,she didn't realise that she'd booked us for a week later by mistake.the 1time lady was really helpful and did all she could to get us on the next very full flight.Aaaah,on that subject,ZS-NRC holds very pleasant memories for me!:cool:

[4HolerPoler]

It's called Yield Management - here's the gist of it:

Yield management, also known as revenue management, is the process of understanding, anticipating and reacting to consumer behaviour in order to maximise revenue. Firms that engage in yield management usually use computer yield management systems to do so. The Internet has greatly facilitated this.

Yield management system

Yield management systems, also known as revenue management systems, attempt to understand, anticipate and react to consumer behaviour in order to maximise revenue. They periodically review transactions for goods or services already supplied and for goods or services to be supplied in the future. They may also review information (including statistics) about events (known future events such as holidays, or unexpected past events such as terrorist attacks), competitive information (including prices), seasonal patterns, and other pertinent factors that affect sales. The models attempt to forecast total demand for all products/services they provide, by market segment and price point. Since total demand normally exceeds what the particular firm can produce in that period, the models attempt to optimize the firm's outputs to maximize revenue.

The optimization attempts to answer the question: "Given our operating constraints, what is the best mix of products and/or services for us to produce and sell in the period, to generate the highest expected revenue?"

Optimization can help the firm adjust prices and to allocate capacity among market segments to maximize expected revenues. This can be done at different levels of detail:

by goods (such as a seat on a flight or a seat at an opera production)
by group of goods (such as the entire opera house or all the seats on a flight)
by market (such as sales from Seattle and Minneapolis for a flight going Seattle-Minneapolis-Boston)
overall (on all the routes an airline flies, or all the seats during an opera production season)
Yield management is particularly suitable when selling perishable products. That is, goods that become unsellable at a point in time (such as just after a flight takes off). With an advance forecast of demand and pricing flexibility, buyers will self-sort based on their price sensitivity (using more power in off-peak hours or going to the theatre mid-week), their demand sensitivity (must have the higher cost early morning flight or must go to the Saturday night opera) or their time of purchase (usually paying a premium for the luxury of booking late).

In this way, yield management's overall aim is to provide an optimal mix of goods at a variety of price points at different points in time. The system will try to maintain a distribution of purchases over time that is balanced as well as high.

Good yield management maximizes (or at least significantly increases) revenue production for the same number of units, by taking advantage of the forecast of high demand/low demand periods, effectively shifting demand from low demand periods to high demand periods and by charging a premium for late bookings. While yield management systems tend to generate higher revenues, the revenue streams tends to arrive later in the booking horizon as more capacity is held for late sale at premium prices.

Firms faced with lack of pricing power sometimes turn to yield management as a last resort. After a year or two using yield management, many of them are surprised to discover they have actually lowered prices for the majority of their opera seats or hotel rooms or other products. That is, they offer far higher discounts more frequently for off-peak times, while raising prices only marginally for peak times.

By doing this, they have actually increased demand by selectively introducing many more price points, as they learn about and react to the diversity of interests and purchase drivers of their customers.

Got it?

4HP

[Gunship]

Got it?

No .. :}


Sjees broer where did you get these high words from ? In lay -man's terms I pressume it means hit them where their pockets burn or where the urge of desire is ? :E

[MysticFlyer]

In layman's terms it means that doing a headcount is not necassary a good indication whether an airline is going to make it or not. (Bums on seats - the old recipe)

The way the cattle truck seats are subdivided into categories and the different prices allocated to the class, depicts this yield management.

In booking terminology, a seat is a "perishable commodity" in that it has lost it's shelf-live as soon as the doors close. With the coming of the internet booking system (and guess who came aslo - LCC's) the price normally would fall the sooner it get's to the departure time.

However, yield can also be manipulated within a booking system, and optimally, means more price leverage for the airline. Internet booking has it's advantages for the consumer, only in ease of making a booking....up to 26 classes within Economy alone, could mean 26 different prices and depending on the demand, well...what your'e gonna and willing to pay.:}

The reverse of the expected gains to the consumer is now evident, last minute bookings as opposed to trend. Who wants to fly when, then we can manipulate the price....The guys scoring here mostly now is....your boss! :ooh:

Demand and supply - main ingredients for an economy, thus - To fly, or not to fly, that is the question?

Funny enough, only through good healthy competition, the consumer can benefit from this.

(Vir die met Afr - k@k en betaal, is die wet van ....!)
(Prof. Vermeulen teach this?)

Mystic1

[Gunship]

Well here we go (again).
Gunss Jnr back from JHB one way tomorrow between 10 and 12.
1 Time by farrrr the cheapest and so easy to book. :ok:
Well they get my money (again) :ok:

Sadly Kulula is again more expensive than BA ?
1 Time
1T 101 Tue, 15 Nov 2005 07:10 09:20 469.00 1 469.00
1T 103 Tue, 15 Nov 2005 09:25 11:35 469.00 1 469.00
1T 109 Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:45 14:55 469.00 1 469.00
1T 111 Tue, 15 Nov 2005 15:20 17:30 469.00 1 469.00
1T 115 Tue, 15 Nov 2005 18:30 20:40 469.00 1 469.00

Kulula
Jo'burg to Cape Town Depart Arrive Stops Flight Fare per Traveller Total
15 November 2005 06:30 08:40 Non stop
MN6441
R 899.00 R 899.00
15 November 2005 07:00 09:10 Non stop
MN6401
R 769.00 R 769.00
15 November 2005 07:30 09:40 Non stop
MN131
R 669.00 R 669.00
15 November 2005 10:00 12:10 Non stop
MN111
R 769.00 R 769.00
15 November 2005 10:40 12:50 Non stop
MN6409
R 769.00 R 769.00
15 November 2005 14:00 16:10 Non stop
MN6419
R 769.00 R 769.00
15 November 2005 15:00 17:10 Non stop
MN6425
R 899.00 R 899.00



BA 5 flights x R605.00

SAA claims R684.00 again they claim I need to book in the future ... well tomorrow is the 15th and that is the future. So useless as can come....

Nationwide claims : Base Fare:=R230.00 plus Taxes: = R299.00
Total Fare: = R529.00

[FuelFlow]

2 Adults from JNB to DUR for the weekend, end of November.
Departing around midday on the Friday and returning on the last flight, on Sunday night.

BA R1912.00

SAA R2072.00

Kulula R2136.00

Nationwide R2292.00

1 Time R2304.00


Not a difficult choice is it!! At least I wont have to pay extra for my drinks and snacks, and I will be on a NG aircraft!

[Gunship]

FF I am quite surprised that 1 Time is the most expensive ?

Maybe try to make up on the Durban route vs the cheap Cape route.

Absolutely amazing that BA is cheapest (that ahead of their own Low Cost Airline)

Sorry gents I just do not see the logic in it .. why pay more to fly in a green a/c where you pay nearly R200 p/kg for biltong or fly in their BA colours with leather seats and you drink like a guppy for free ? :uhoh: :uhoh:

[sky waiter]

Guys its called supply and demand, if you are booking in peak season obviously those guys who book earlier i.e a month in advance will get the cheapest fairs, hence seat availabilty, kulula sell 30% of there seats at the lower price increasing up to as much as 1000 rands one way so if they are all sold obviosly you will pay more. Hence the need to shop around!!! :ok:

[Gunship]

Had a GREAT experience with BA flying from LHR.

See more here : http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2312997#post2312997