Skywise
 

Another South African low cost airline starting up in 2015. Additional capacity with nothing new to bring to the table?

SOURCE

Interesting that these startups feel there is enough extra demand in the South African key markets to make a new airline work. I've seen prices extremely low on key domestic routes in ZA, even with relatively little advance notice. In the case of JNB-CPT they are pretty much hourly if not shorter intervals already, exactly what you said, absolutely nothing new to bring to the table. Areas where more price competition is needed would be intra-Africa regional routes. Would love to score a JNB-MRU or JNB-NOS for R1000, but slim chance I'm going to pay some startup R800 for JNB-CPT when I can accrue *A or OW miles for R1000 on one of the main carriers.

Hi dvs7310, personally I agree with you, particularly when I have lounge access etc with SAA and BA but not all flyers are interested in collecting *A or OW miles. For a person travelling once or twice a year to see family or friends or travelling on holiday, price is often the determining factor. Multiply the R200 saving in your example by a family of 4, that's why some people choose LCC.

But you have to also allocate a cost to the liability column, for the potential that the LCC may fail before you fly.. South Africans have regularly been burned in the past holding on to future tickets, especially as the LCCs encourage early bookings.