South African Airways Part 2: SAA & Mango plan short-haul expansion as LCC competition intensifies

The South African Airways (SAA) Group is planning to pursue further growth in the domestic and regional international markets as competition intensifies. SAA mainline aims to grow regional international revenues by 30% in the current fiscal year while its predominately domestic budget subsidiary Mango plans to grow capacity by about 20%.

The group at least for now plans to continue relying on its full service brand in the short-haul international market despite growing competition from LCCs. African LCC groups flyafrica.com and fastjet now compete against SAA on some of its most lucrative routes and are aiming to launch several more routes to South Africa.

Competition has intensified even more significantly in South Africa's domestic market as new LCCs FlySafair and Skywise have launched, breaking the duopoly of SAA and rival airline group Comair. Mango is responding by adding two more 737-800s, which will be used primarily to add domestic capacity.