Mango awareness flying high
Insights company RS recently conducted a survey amongst 509 metropolitan adults (aged 18 and over) asking how they feel about SAA's 1 November 2006 launch of low-cost airline Mango in competition with airlines such as Kulula.com and 1Time. The main finding is that Mango has achieved high levels of awareness in a relatively short space of time.
There is also a relatively high claimed incidence of trying to book a flight, again given the short space of time and the time of year. Most people approve of the venture and it seems that it has considerable potential to shake up the low-cost end of the airline industry.
The sample of people interviewed - those with access to a landline telephone in metro areas - represents a slightly more wealthy segment of the population than average but it is likely to be the heart of Mango's target audience.
Awareness is high
Three statements were posed to people who were asked to agree or disagree with each. The first looked at how many people know of Mango in this population segment.
RS found that 71% of this audience had heard of Mango and 29% had not. There is no statistically significant variation in these figures across race group, gender, age or area. It is only amongst the poorest income group (those with a household income of less than R2000 per month) that awareness drops notably to 54%.
This is a remarkable achievement in a short space of time - less than two weeks.
Who has tried to book a flight on Mango?
Twelve percent of the RS sample said that they had tried to book a flight on Mango - also a high figure given the short space of time the airline has been in existence and given the time of year. The figure is higher for Indians and coloureds (22%), especially females, and lower for whites (5%) and blacks (9%).
Trial is also higher for people in the 25 to 34 age group (18%) and lower for older people (50 plus - 7%).
Interestingly, the claimed level of trying to book a flight does vary with income, with 14% of those with monthly household incomes of R2000 to R10 000 claiming to have tried to book a flight, compared with 8% of those earning over R10 000 and 8% of those earning under R2 000. In line with the coloured skew noted above, relative popularity is higher in Cape Town (18%) than elsewhere.
Most approve of the venture
A quarter of the sample feel that SAA should not be allowed to run a low-cost airline such as Mango, while the vast majority (71%) approve; 4% gave a "don't know" response.
Approval runs at the same level across most demographics, rising amongst the youngest age group (18 - 24 years - 81%) and dropping amongst the oldest (50 years plus - 62%). Approval was also higher amongst single people (76%, compared with 66% of married people or people living with a partner).
The survey is funded by RS as part of its continuing series of studies on issues of general social and political interest and is one of several issues probed in November 2006. It has a margin of error of 5% for the results quoted. Interviewing was conducted 7 - 10 November.
