Port Elizabeth is my home town (yes, I am not ashamed to admit this) and I miss it badly. What other city in South Africa (and Bloemfontein does not count) offers you zero traffic, R5 wine specials and makes you feel like a millionaire if you drive a Toyota. As my family still lives there, I tend to spend quite a bit of my time online searching for best airfare specials.
What bothers me about the cost of domestic flights in South Africa is well, just that, the cost. Why are flights from Cape Town to PE so bloody expensive? Compared with the UK, we are being robbed blind in this country when it comes to travelling locally and internationally. For the price of a domestic flight in South Africa, you could travel to Paris from London; you could fly to Rome or spend the week-end in Switzerland sampling chocolates. The cost of international flights from South Africa is also undeniably high. If you want to fly to Europe, you will be forced to spend at least R7,000Â whilst travelling to the States is closer to R12,000. For that amount in the UK, you could have a trip around the world or visit at least 2 continents.
What South Africa needs is the equivalent of Ryan Air in the UK. We need an international budget airline with no frills but with airfare prices that allows the majority of the public to travel overseas without having to spend a year saving up for one trip. We need an airline that makes travelling overseas a normal occurrence instead of a luxurious purchase (and I don’t mean those dirt cheap specials that leave you stranded in Namibia, sleeping at the airport for three days).
Am I the only one who thinks that or am I just a cheap ass? Are the rest of you finding it affordable to travel internationally? Don’t say you travel to Spain…I will be too jealous.
