FlySafair expands offering, includes flight booking on other airlines

Source: Bob Adams Wikimedia Commons

Passengers can now select flights from airlines including CemAir and Fastjet via the FlySafair website for flights on the Johannesburg – Bloemfontein and Cape Town – George routes, with plans to increase these options in the future.

To develop this capability for Online Travel Agency (OTA) flight sales, FlySafair partnered with local travel technology company Tripco, best known for its LekkeSlaap booking platform.

"FlySafair is always looking for innovative ways to provide our passengers with new offerings. We pride ourselves on constant innovation, and this benefits our passengers and the other airlines. We have already seen sales coming through for third-party airlines this week and we have plans to load more flights operated by more airlines on more routes down the line too," says Kirby Gordon, chief marketing Officer at FlySafair.

As the customer progresses through the booking process on the FlySafair website, they are notified about which airline will operate the flight they have selected, and a small service fee is charged. Call centres are in place to service any booking amendments to any flights regardless of the carrier chosen.

Air travel innovation

"The new launch is a fantastic opportunity that benefits FlySafair, Tripco, the customer and other airlines. This is only the beginning. The technology that we have built has the capability to load any route in the world, and the expansion of routes will be driven by FlySafair," says Marcel van de Ghinste, Tripco executive director.

"It is certainly a very different approach for an airline to position itself as a flight OTA as well as an airline. We are very pleased to be working with FlySafair and to benefit from exposure on its well-known website. We believe that this platform may have a lot of potential for selling multi-sector regional flights within Southern Africa," says Miles van der Molen, CemAir CEO.

This innovative approach to air travel bookings is a response to the requirements of the post-Covid passenger. Donahue Cotes, COO of Fastjet says: "As travel trends evolve with the increasing use of online channels, Fastjet acknowledges the enhanced digital innovation recently introduced by FlySafair, which expands selling flights on Fastjet and other airlines."