FlySafair under scrutiny as airline responds to NCC 'overbooking' investigation
The airline is calling for an industry-wide overbooking probe amid the consumer commission investigation into the airline's practice.
A FlySafair aircraft. Picture: FlySafair
Stephen Grootes speaks to Kirby Gordon, chief marketing officer of FlySafair, about the airline's response to the National Consumer Commission's investigation into its overbooking practices.
Listen to the interview in the audio player below.
The National Consumer Commission (NCC) is investigating FlySafair over its overbooking practices.
The inquiry is in response to a social media complaint from a would-be passenger who was allegedly denied a seat on a booked flight due to overbooking.
JUST IN: The National Consumer Commission is investigating the deliberate overbooking of flights by FlySafair - after the carrier openly admitted on X that it's a common practice "to keep flights affordable for passengers".@khanya_mntambo pic.twitter.com/0Ol3ztMBAu
— EWN Reporter (@ewnreporter) January 8, 2025
But FlySafair has defended the practice as a globally accepted industry standard to manage ticketed passengers who don't show up for their flight.
Speaking to Stephen Grootes on The Money Show, Kirby Gordon, chief marketing officer of FlySafair says its overbooking policy is conservative and affects less than 1% ticketed passengers.
Gordon says the consumer commission investigation should conduct an industry wide probe to look into the practice.
"Overbooking is a standard practice across the airline industry globally. Unfortunately, part of the financial model that we all pursue does involve a degree of breakage, and so overbooking is one of those ways that we manage to keep fares low during that breakage, and also of course offer a degree of leniency to those who genuinely do miss their flights."
- Kirby Gordon, chief marketing officer - FlySafair
"Every airline has its own terms and conditions, and we're closely guided by the Consumer Protection Act in South Africa, so in the FlySafair instance, if an aircraft is overbooked, the affected passenger will receive R1,000 compensation per person, per flight immediately."
- Kirby Gordon, chief marketing officer - FlySafair
"If we didn't do it as an industry, it would ultimately impact on fares, and you'd probably find that a lot of the leniency in terms of those rules around missing of flights would be dropped."
- Kirby Gordon, chief marketing officer - FlySafair
Scroll to the top of the article to listen to the full interview.