Greedy airlines have been warned against price gouging that has seen tickets cost as much as R5 000 for a single trip from Cape Town to Johannesburg in the wake of cancelled Comair and Kulula.com flights over safety concerns.
At the weekend, on Saturday 12 March 2022, the South African Civil Aviation Authority suspended the Air Operator Certificate of Comair PTY Ltd, which operates scheduled services on domestic routes as a British Airways franchisee.
Operations for Comair’s subsidiary Kulula.com were also suspended.
The regulator said Comair is trying to resolve the safety concerns raised that led to the indefinite suspension of its operations.
Earlier on Tuesday, workers belonging to the National Union of Metalworkers protested outside Comair offices in Rhodesfield Kempton Park, where they demanded the resignation of CEO Glenn Orsmond.
Consequently, this suspension meant that significant airline seat capacity had been removed from the market and that would undoubtedly result in travellers having to scramble up the remaining tickets in higher fare buckets.
“It has now emerged that there are reports and complaints of large increases in price for seats on the remaining airlines some even quoting R5 000 single flight ticket from Johannesburg to Cape Town,” said the Competition Commission of South Africa on Tuesday.
The Commission said while it understands the suspension of the airlines has an impact on the airfares, the situation that stranded passengers find themselves in should not be unduly exploited by other airlines.
The Commission encourages all airlines “to put more capacity into the market where possible until the Comair situation has been resolved to assist stranded passengers at more moderate prices”.
The Commission said some airlines have actively removed seats from low fare buckets and allocated them to higher-priced fare buckets or introduced new much higher fare buckets on popular routes.
The Commission warned it may consider this an act of price gouging designed to deliberately exploit the current situation.
The Commission said it will also be engaging airlines over the next few days to “establish what plans they have in place to address the current situation and any complaints from travellers about prices in the market”.
The Commission warned airlines that it will not hesitate to act swiftly and decisively if there’s evidence of price gouging.
