A consumer survey on airlines shows that Kulula and South African Airways (SAA) are the most used brands but the majority of respondents (62 percent) say that British Airways (BA) is the airline they would be happiest to fly.
The survey was conducted by Interact RDT (Research Design Training) among local consumers on their experiences and perceptions of the domestic airline market.
Of the 93 percent of respondents who have flown domestically, a combined 70 percent fly SAA and Kulula (each carry 35 percent of respondents). The reason for these two brands' dominance is directly related to the availability of Voyager Miles for SAA and the low cost of fares on Kulula.
The least used is BA with only five percent of the sample flying them, followed by 1Time and Mango with 12 percent and 13 percent respectively. The cost of a ticket on BA is the reason for its relatively small piece of the pie.
Least favourable experience
On assessing actual experiences on the various airlines, SAA is ranked as offering the least favourable experience with its booking and check-in processes and attitude of flight crew pulling down its rankings.
The online survey conducted in mid-March asked respondents to rank their most used airline only on seven categories of service; booking process, check-in process, flight punctuality, food served, attitude of flight crew, flight comfort and overall experience.
On average all airlines' booking and check-in processes were highly rated with BA just taking the lead. They also lead on flight punctuality; a category where Kulula lags way behind its competitors. The category in which Kulula leads the pack is the attitude of flight crew.
Across all categories, 1Time and Mango are reported as offering a middle-of-the-road service. When asked why respondents chose to not use a particular brand, a lack of trust was near the top of the list of reasons why 1Time is not an option. The same was not true for Mango which is reportedly not picked because respondent claim never to have had the opportunity to do so.
SAA perceived as expensive
"It's interesting to note the power of a loyalty programme. Although SAA is so well used, it doesn't appear to be all that well liked," says Gary Greenfield, managing director of Interact RDT.
"We also assessed consumer's perceptions about the various local airline brands and SAA is perceived as being relatively expensive, which indicates that people are using their 'free' Voyager miles to travel locally."
In terms of consumer perceptions, BA is considered to be the most expensive while Mango the least. However BA is perceived to be the most reliable (38 percent) and comfortable (48 percent).
When asked which airline would potentially give consumers the most hassles, SAA was the brand named most by 21 percent of respondents.
When asked which airline respondents would be happy to fly with, BA ranked highest with 62 percent of the vote followed by SAA (56 percent), Kulula (44 percent), Mango (25 percent) and 1Time (23 percent).
These results correlate almost directly to the power of the grapevine; with respondents saying that they had heard good things about each airline as follows; BA 50 percent, Kulula 28 percent, SAA 25 percent, Mango 12 percent and 1Time 11 percent.
"Regardless of whether the perceptions given by our respondents represent the true facts is immaterial," says Greenfield. "In the competitive world of consumer buying activity, perception is reality. So, if the local airlines are concerned about our consumer panel response, we suggest they look very carefully at what has created these opinions and what will change them."
Source - iafrica.com
See - www.saasucks.com/ -
http://amplicate.com/sucks/saa
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