Southern Africa’s leading low-cost carrier, FlySafair, has returned its popular annual sale. This year, the airline is selling up to 50,000 one-way tickets for approximately 50¢ (R10) to celebrate its tenth birthday. The promotion gets South Africans excited every year, but not everyone is lucky enough to win.
Like FlySafair, many low-cost carriers worldwide are known for attracting travelers with cheap fares and regular or once-off promotions. In addition to its R10 sale, the airline is also offering 30% off all flights, as well as free flights for a year to one lucky traveler. While free flights are more attractive, there are higher chances of winning a ten Rand ticket. Last year, the airline sold tickets for R9 for its ninth birthday and all the way down to R1 for its first birthday.
Photo: FlySafair
The sale started on May 8, 2024, at 09:00 local time. Tickets are available for one-way travel on select domestic routes. FlySafair serves over ten domestic and international destinations from its base at Johannesburg OR Tambo International Airport (JNB). Lucky customers can secure a R10 ticket to or from Johannesburg, Lanseria, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth (Gqerbeha), East London, Bloemfontein, George, and Kruger Mpumalanga.
As usual, the sale is based purely on luck, and tickets are only available on the airline’s website. After visiting the website, travelers are put into a waiting room to manage traffic. Every few minutes from 09:00, lucky customers will be randomly selected to go through to the R10 sale. Once admitted, you must book your ticket as quickly as possible. If you wait too long, your session might expire. Each session will be ten minutes. According to the airline, 75,000 people were waiting in the queue within the first hour. FlySafair Chief Marketing Officer Kirby Gordon said to Simple Flying,
“We’re thrilled about the overwhelmingly positive response to our R10 Birthday Sale today. South Africans have eagerly joined our queue since early this morning, sharing their experiences on social media. As always, South African humor shines through brilliantly. The sale began at 9 am, and the first hour has gone smoothly, with lucky R10 ticket buyers already sharing their excitement on social media. The sale is ongoing, and we still have a significant number of tickets available.”
Photo: FlySafair
The airline has provided a calendar in the waiting room for customers to see where cheap tickets are available. They are placed randomly on selected days and flights. Tickets are valid for travel between May 9 and November 30, 2024. The sale ends once all 50,000 one-way tickets are sold or anytime before, at the sole discretion of FlySafair.
FlySafair is only in preliminary talks with Boeing about operating the 737 MAX.
The promotion has seen year-on-year growth since FlySafair introduced its R1 sale in 2015. The low-cost carrier states that the sale is a highlight of its marketing calendar, expressing its mission to provide affordable airfares to South African travelers and expand access to air travel.
Photo: Thiago B Trevisan | Shutterstock
Promotions and sales like these can be very important for marketing for low-cost carriers if managed properly. They build brand awareness and encourage passengers to be familiar with the airline’s website and other proprietary sales channels like the app. Furthermore, it would reduce the airline’s expenses from sales travel agents. Airline Executive and African aviation expert Sean Mendis said,
“These are basically budgeted as marketing expenses rather than sale of transportation. If you manage your inventory well, you are only selling the seats that you would otherwise most likely not fill, so even the 10 rand is a positive. The awareness of your brand is priceless though. It ensures that whenever a customer is looking to travel at full price in the future, you are the first website that they check.”
Over the years, FlySafair has become a brand many Southern Africans are familiar with. Besides annual sales and promotions, it has launched various campaigns to support sports, arts, and culture. Last year, the carrier was responsible for taking the Springboks around the country after they returned from France with the Rugby World Cup trophy.
With many promotions, lucky customers secure discounted flights but still have to pay for airport fees and charges. In this case, the R10 tickets are inclusive of all airport taxes and VAT. However, they do not include additional services like checked luggage, priority boarding, and seat pre-selection.
Selecting a ticket does not guarantee a flight, as only successful payment in full results in a confirmed ticket reservation. If multiple people are looking at the same ticket, it will be issued to the first person who has completed their payment. To expedite the process, FlySafair encouraged customers to make an account on the airline’s website and add card details before the promotion.
Photo: FlySafair
While FlySafair offers multiple payment methods for regular tickets, the Pick n Pay, RCS, Mobicred, and Zapper payment methods are not available for this promotion. Once you have completed your payment, you will be returned to the waiting room. At the moment, the FlySafair website is only advertising the R10 sale. Regular bookings can be made through the FlySafair app, call center, or airport ticket sales office.
“The popularity and impact this sale has gained has really solidified our decision to invest in our product rather than promotion. Obviously, the sale gains us a large amount of exposure, but given the choice, we will always choose to put people in seats and show them what it is all about,” said Gordon.
What are your thoughts on this story? Have you participated in the sale before? Please let us know in the comments!
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