Kulula come to their pricing senses |
1 Mar 2008 |
In July 2007 Kulula airline made the decision to exclude airport taxes from their advertised flight prices, their reasoning being that they wanted to demonstrate how high ACSA's airport taxes were. While we at SouthAfrica.to share little love for ACSA, we suspected that Kulula were also trying to pull the wool over people's eyes, by quoting lower flight prices than were ultimately being paid...and we pointed out that there were better ways that Kulula could have chosen to demonstrate the ACSA's greedy airport taxes, whilst at the same time showing the full flight prices to South Africa's unsophisticated market.
1time was loving it
1time airline did not take long to start pointing out to their customers what was going on in Kulula's pricing. They started off by sending out an email: "Nobody likes hidden costs...ALL our prices are ALL inclusive...What you see is what you get...and when you get your ticket, don’t expect any ugly surprises."
Then 1time got a little bit bolder, and on their online reservations page stated that "unlike some of our competitors, these fares include all taxes", with the word "competitors" in green (Kulula's corporate colour).
With the passage of time 1time airline got bolder still, changing the sentence on their booking system to "unlike Kulula, these fares include all taxes".
Today when we looked on the 1time site they still had the advert up - hopefully they'll realise that Kulula are in fact including all taxes, before they get in trouble for false advertising (to be fair, Kulula haven't been very vocal about their new stance...we stumbled on it only because we regularly examine flight prices).
Got into trouble with the Advertising Standards Authority
A little while after their decision to exclude airport taxes, Kulula got into trouble with the Advertising Standards Authority, and got one of their adverts banned for excluding airport taxes.
Kulula now including airport taxes
We are happy to report that Kulula are now including airport taxes in their flight prices, as well as stating what the airport taxes are. This creates a win-win for Kulula and their passengers:
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passengers can see what the full flight prices is
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Kulula can demonstrate how much ACSA is charging for airport taxes
Well done Kulula, for switching back to consumer-friendly all-inclusive flight prices.
Come on SAA and Interlink...you can do it
That leaves South African Airways (SAA) and Interlink in the rogues gallery - they still exclude airport taxes from their headline prices in their online reservation systems...hopefully Kulula's example will encourage them too, to include everything in their flight prices. Compared to India, South Africa is a good place to be - in India most airlines exclude airport taxes from their headline price (and airport taxes often form 70% of the price of the tickets).
