Mango Airlines again |
4 Jul 2008 flights |
Just like last week, Mango Airlines are cheapest - at R408, they Mango are offering the cheapest flight from Johannesburg to Durban on the evening of the 4th July 2008. On the right days, July is a much cheaper time to book flights than June (with a long weekend starting on the 14th June, Gauteng school holidays starting on the 21st June and Western Cape school holidays starting on the 28th June).
Flights from Johannesburg to Durban |
Bus trips from Johannesburg to Durban |
||
British Airways economy class |
922 |
Baz Bus (7 day pass) |
1020 |
Kulula Airline economy class |
459 |
Citiliner bus |
160 |
Mango Airlines economy class |
408 |
City to City bus |
150 |
1time Airline economy class |
737 |
Greyhound bus |
220 |
SAA economy class |
649 |
Intercape bus |
210 |
British Airways business class |
2141 |
SA Roadlink bus |
site not working |
SAA business class |
1618 |
Translux bus |
180 |
In terms of business class flights from Johannesburg to Durban, SAA are cheapest.
City to City bus is cheapest
Whilst the cost of airline tickets is very responsive to what is happening on that date (e.g. school holidays), the cost of bus tickets seems to respond more to its input costs (e.g. fuel) - whilst flight prices on this route have come down since the last survey, bus prices continue rising. The City to City bus is cheapest from Johannesburg to Durban.
Departure City |
Destination City |
Full Price |
Departure Date & Time |
Arrival Date & Time |
Carrier |
JOHANNESBURG |
DURBAN |
150.00 |
04 July - 08h30 |
04 July - 16h00 |
City to City |
JOHANNESBURG |
DURBAN |
150.00 |
04 July - 20h45 |
05 July - 04h30 |
City to City |
After that terrible SA Roadlink Durban accident, their site is not working today (presumably the two are unrelated).
Green index at lowest level
Our green index measures the price of flying against the price of bus trips. The lower the green index the cheaper flying is relative to buses. The green index today is at its lowest level since we started measuring (at the start of this year), indicating that the cost of flights is 2.7 times the cost of bus trips from Johannesburg to Durban.
Car rentals at Durban Airport
For the weekend starting 4 July 2008, Durban airport car rentals are as follows (for the first time Tempest Car Hire isn't cheapest - the honours goes to Avis South Africa).
Avis car hire |
Budget rent a car |
Europcar rentals |
Hertz car rental |
Imperial car rental |
Tempest car hire |
Thrifty car rental |
Woodford car rental |
|
327 |
333 |
513 |
362 |
479 |
332 |
331 |
386 |
330 |
Hotel accommodation in Durban
The price of a night at the Protea Hotel Durban has gone up from R1240 in our last survey, to a record R1620. The Suncoast Hotel & Towers and Southern Sun North Beach are fully booked on the 4th July. The Road Lodge, as usual, offers the cheapest night's accommodation.
Protea Hotel Edward |
City Lodge Durban |
Road Lodge Durban |
Garden Court South Beach |
Garden Court Marine Parade |
Southern Sun North Beach |
Suncoast Hotel & Towers |
1620 |
656 |
355 |
683 |
803 |
no rooms |
no rooms |
Ayelet explores Namibia
Africa is inside us (as Chinese-owned Standard Bank likes to say), so we're not leaving Namibia out. Ayelet wrote a beautiful blog entry containing tons of photos of Namibia. She mentions something I'd never thought about - that some of Namibia's towns share the same names as Israel's towns - Rehoboth, Nazareth, Rosh Pinah and Berseba.
Imperial Europcar ad at Johannesburg O.R. Tambo
[Note that subsequent to this article being written, Imperial Car Rental was rebranded Europcar on 1 July 2009]
Bosom buddies - here's an Imperial car rental Europcar ad I saw at Johannesburg O.R. Tambo International Airport:
Selling a big ticket item
"One evening in 1974 when I lived in Asia, I stopped to watch a street-food vendor whom I passed each day. He was a banana-chip maker. His business was to slice, cook and sell banana chips to passers by. He was extraordinarily skilful, not only in slicing hundreds of bananas into thousands of perfect pieces but also at selling his product. He impressed me and made me think. I felt it a pity that such marketing, technical talent and energy were devoted to a process which sold for a mere penny. There and then I determined that when I went into business on my own account I would apply my energies to developing and marketing a big-ticket product which could sell for vastly more. It could have been property, ships or aircraft. Given my background, the choice was inevitable.'" Tony Ryan, the founder of Ryanair flights relates a story to the Irish Management Institute's national conference in 1992, as quoted in Siobhán Creaton's book "Ryanair: How a Small Irish Airline Conquered Europe
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