Press agencies pick up small stories in one country, write a short paragraph and flash it round the world so an item of small significance gets worldwide coverage. Other agencies that scour the world’s press for daily headline briefings add to the problem because they pick up the same story from countless sources and create the impression there is a major story. If you checked the daily worldwide aviation press headlines the other day you would have seen the following headline in many newspapers, “British Airways in World Cup Price-Fixing Claim”. Well, it looked a good story…
The “British Airways” in the headline is actually BA’s South African franchisee, Comair. A South African newspaper was accusing Comair, and other South African domestic airlines, of increasing their regional fares for the World Cup period. It is hardly a surprise that domestic fares increase when there is an influx of foreign visitors and massive demand for tickets. A simple case of supply and demand, not a scandal and not limited to Comair.
Yet the damage was done.
BA gets enough bad press of its own without having to be embarrassed around the world by this non-story that does not even have anything to do with them.
Willie Walsh is said to hate the whole idea of franchises. The airline might get a reasonable income from renting its name but risks a great deal of reputational damage if things go wrong.
Ironically, Comair is very well regarded in South Africa and is frequently praised as the best domestic airline, ahead of SAA. But the praise always seems to be for “Comair, a franchisee of British Airways”. When someone wants to go on the attack and sensationalise a story, the airline becomes “British Airways”.
You can’t win!
Tags: British Airways, Comair
South African Airways is being very clever playing a Richard Branson.I think a staff member savvy with this anti competition laws knew SAA would be in deep trouble and quickly alerted the authorities betraying its erstwhile partners in crime.
While hiking prices is not illegal due to the expected rise in demand during the World Cup in June/July,forming cartels to cooperate in pricing strategies is anti competitive and illegal and SAA should face the law;they could maybe get a ‘lenient’ sentence for blowing up the whistle but there should be no immunity from prosecution.