Sunday Times<\/a><\/strong> that the airline plans to offer flexibility to customers, as well as competitive pricing.<\/p>\n\u201cAnyone who travels with us will have a fully flexible ticket and will be able to change their flight as many times as they want to without fees. Our hypothesis is that with that in mind, people will become more comfortable to book, and less anxious about travelling,” he said.<\/p>\n
However, Novick said that the airline doesn\u2019t plan to undercut competitors or start a race to the bottom: “We will focus our efforts on adding value, not cutting prices. We want to redefine the customer journey from start to finish,” he said.<\/p>\n
Novick said that customers\u2019 payments will be kept in a separate structure until after the flights are flown \u2014 to avoid them losing money in the event the airline goes bust. This is a departure from industry norms globally, he said.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s our basic belief that customers should not fund airlines and neither should governments,\u201d he said. \u201cNo rational argument has been put forward that gives anybody confidence that it is necessary to put money into SAA that should have been invested in social projects and health care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Launching in a pandemic<\/strong><\/p>\nThe new airline is a partnership between established operator Global Aviation, Novick, and former Uber executive Jonathan Ayache. A group of highly experienced industry specialists have also joined the team.<\/p>\n
Lift will have a low fixed-cost base and no debt, and a flexible staffing and resourcing structure.<\/p>\n
It will use Global\u2019s existing infrastructure, aircraft, maintenance facilities, cabin crew and pilots and its central flight control facility, leveraging off Global\u2019s long experience in providing full-service leasing for bespoke charters or to other airlines (Comair included) when they needed backup planes.<\/p>\n
Lift will initially operate three aircraft which will fly up to seven return flights a day on the Cape Town and George routes.<\/p>\n
Novick has previously said\u00a0that he is upbeat about the opportunity which the pandemic brings to re-look at traditional business models and find how things can be done differently.<\/p>\n
He said the pandemic has created the prospect of affordably acquiring the key inputs to start an airline \u2013 aircraft, facilities, and skilled employees. A key focus for Novick is on efficiency and cutting costs, which include leasing aircraft at dramatically reduced rates.<\/p>\n
He added that there are high-quality maintenance facilities available which are far cheaper than what they were a few months ago. Through experience he found that airlines get less efficient the larger they get, so starting off small gives a new airline a big advantage.<\/p>\n
Another focus for Novick is flexibility. \u201cWith the market uncertainty, a flexible model which can adjust to market demand is critical,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He told MyBroadband technology will play a very important role to increase efficiency. \u201cTechnology has the ability to facilitate a seamless, efficient, and engaging relationship with our future customers,\u201d Novick said.<\/p>\n
\nRead: Gordhan says analysts \u2018lack insight and financial literacy\u2019 over SAA bailout<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local airline Lift will open its website for bookings on Tuesday (10 November) as it prepares to officially begin operations on 10 December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":262467,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-446726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446726"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446730,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446726\/revisions\/446730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}