Lift eyeing business travel growth in 2024

Domestic airline Lift is hoping the new year will come with greater business travel activity as working conditions have begun morphing back to pre-pandemic levels.

CEO Jonathan Ayache on Wednesday expressed optimism that business travel – which he said is the backbone of the industry – will see an uptick in 2024.

According to the airline, there has already been a pleasing recovery in leisure travel in the post-pandemic period, which has contributed to strong seasonal peaks for Lift.

“The pandemic brought about a shift in behaviour, leading to a prevalence of online meetings and the adoption of flexible work models, affecting the pace of recovery in business travel,” Ayache said in a statement.

“However, this is still in flux, and we may well see increased business travel in 2024. We look forward to the new year and we’re committed to adapting our offering and providing solutions for the evolving needs of the travelling public,” he added.

Read: Comair’s exit expedites Lift’s growth plans [Jun 2022]

Ayache told Moneyweb that the airline has put various strategies in place to attract more business travellers, like developing business-targeted packages – such as Lift Premium – as well as ensuring the airline’s flight options are available to business-focused booking channels.

“Based on the proportions in the business distribution channels, we are looking to drive this number up. Business travel generally generates a higher yield as business travellers typically book business travel last minute and more often than not, they book Premium which is at a higher fare,” he said.

“We have purposely built a product that suits business travellers and have a deliberate strategy to target business travellers.”

Read: With 2024 changes, is it worth getting to Diamond on Vitality Health?

Covid-19 blow

Lift came onto the airline scene in December 2020 amid the hardships brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pandemic-related travel bans dealt a major blow to the local airline industry, which in 2022 found itself in a crisis after losing some carrier capacity, partly as a result of travel coming to a standstill. The period saw a lot of local carriers faltering, including state-owned South African Airways (SAA), Comair, SA Express and Mango.

Read: Jhb-Cpt flight prices spike to R6k return, if you can find one

The industry’s woes were most felt by consumers in 2022 when flight prices soared to new highs as a result of the reduced capacity and airlines having to stomach greater operating costs, including higher jet fuel prices, and a weaker local currency.

Ayache said the industry has managed to recover and might actually be sitting with an oversupply of seats at this point.

Read: Last-minute Cape Town flights crest R4 000 one way

No expansion

Lift will be celebrating its third anniversary this Sunday. Since taking to the skies, the airline has reportedly operated 14 500 flights, carried more than 2.1 million passengers, and flown more than 13 million kilometres.

The airline said it is currently operating up to 28 flights per day between its Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town routes.

“It’s surreal to celebrate our third birthday – on one hand, we’ve just begun, and on the other, we’ve already made significant accomplishments,” Ayache said.

Despite the milestones the young airline has achieved, Ayache told Moneyweb that there are currently no plans to expand into other routes. Instead, the airline is focused on increasing its frequencies on the routes it already operates.

“We currently don’t have any short-term plans to launch additional routes,” he said.

“We are looking at our presence on the existing routes that we operate on domestically and increasing our frequency on these routes where there is demand. We are very agile. We do see huge potential in the region, and given our very flexible and agile business model, we will consider any opportunity to launch a route if we believe it’s commercially viable.”

Listen to Jimmy Moyaha’s interview with Siyabulela Makunga from the Competition Commission and Lift co-founder Gidon Novick in this SAfm Market Update podcast (or read the transcript here):

You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.