So we are just under a year away from the next biggest thing in South Africa’s history next to Nelson Mandela becoming president. The world cup 2010 is coming, and it is coming at a blistering pace. Further to my Business Travellers breakfast last week I decided to do some home work on what is available for next year. As I am sure you are aware if you are in travel or have travelled before you can generally only book aprox 330 days into the future, this means June 2010 is available for booking now! With this in mind I did some delving into the availability side of things with the airlines and learnt some shocking news. Here are a few highlights of my investigation:
- To go to the semi finals in Cape Town from Johannesburg to attend the game on the 06th July I searched for flights departing JHB on 05 July returning on the 07th July. The best fare I could find excluding booking fees was R3713 (Taxes included) this was not even direct to Cape Town this was travelling via Port Elizabeth. The airline in this case was SAA.
- Now lets leave from London to Cape Town on SAA for the same game just a few days earlier, the fare availability came in at a whopping R23 450 including taxes and excluding the booking fee.
- Next lets go to a pool game in Polokwane, departing JHB on the 12th June and returning to JHB on the 14 June we found flights with availability coming in at R2974 return including taxes and excluding the booking fee. The flying time is aprox 1 hour. This calculates are almost R50 per minute air travelling time.
So with that been said it looks like this is a FIFA event and they have done their homework and tied everything up very neatly. Well done to FIFA in selling SA out I hope it works out for you. Watch this space in the coming months while I do more investigating.
