Low cost airline Mango’s first flight from Johannesburg landed in Port Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela Bay this morning. The airline will initially operate daily return flights between Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth and Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Since opening for sales on the route less than 10 days ago, forward bookings have shown positive movement with expected load factors in the upper region of 80% thus-far. The inaugural flight from Johannesburg was at capacity, with 186 Guests on-board.
Port Elizabeth is the second new airport in the Mango stable within 15 months; Lanseria was launched in mid-2011. “Flights to and from Nelson Mandela Bay marks the beginning of a new growth phase for Mango,” says CEO Nico Bezuidenhout. The airline plans to add several new routes, both domestic and regional, to its network over the next 24 months. The airline has also employed the vast majority Port Elizabeth airport staff recently retrenched by a competitor.
“Our operational efficiencies and fuel efficient, new generation Boeing 737-800 aircraft and wide distribution network and payment methods will continue to make air travel more accessible and affordable in every city we fly to,” says Bezuidenhout. Mango has carried in excess of 9 million Guests (passengers) in 6 years of operation, an average of well over 1,3 million travellers annually and more than 300 000 per aircraft with a boarding and deplaning efficiency aggregate of 5 seconds per person.
Mango currently enjoys 20% market share on routes that it operates, has been the most on-time domestic airline for 5 years on aggregate, is the only airline in Africa to offer Wi-Fi on-board and remains the sole global carrier to accept store charge cards (Edgars, Jet) as payment method.
Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism (NMBT) chairperson Odwa Mtati (from left), Mango Airlines CEO Nico Bezuidenhout of Johannesburg, local tourism specialist Peter Myles and NMBT vice-chairperson Clifford Ngakane in high spirits at the Port Elizabeth Int’Airport today (SUBS: 5 December) when Mango touched down for the first time in Nelson Mandela Bay. The low-cost airline will fly between PE-Johannesburg and PE-Cape Town from today.
