Europe to South Africa is one of the world’s ultimate weekend breaks. You can leave the office at five o’clock on a Friday, fly nearly 12 thousand miles on a pair of overnight flights and be back at work by nine am on Monday. For travellers originating in London, that is an average air speed of 187 miles per hour.
Heading due south(ish), there is no jetlag.
For the same reason South Africa also works well for business travel. With two overnight flights and no jetlag, in theory you can go to a meeting without needing a hotel room.
I got thinking about this when I read last week about how plucky startup Norse Atlantic will apparently be launching thrice-weekly flights from London Gatwick to Cape Town when the winter schedule starts in October this year.
Many flights operating between Europe and South Africa are scheduled as overnighters each way. Norse Atlantic however will fly overnight out of London and return during the day.
The theory is that business and premium leisure travellers value the overnighters as an opportunity to avoid wasting valuable time awake on a plane.
Norse Atlantic being a leisure-focused airline, their strategy is to maximise aircraft utilisation. Keeping aircraft at South African airports for long turn-arounds is costly because if the aircraft headed straight home and then onward, it can keep earning revenue or have some maintenance done. Aircraft waiting around earn no pay. If Norse Atlantic sees little business demand, then keeping their plane moving is the right thing to do.
I wanted to find out if the idea of business-heavy flights waiting around generating more revenue than others heading straight home is really true, and if it is, how much extra revenue do airlines earn by leaving the plane all day in South Africa?
(There may also be cost implications of taking off and landing at hot-and-high Johannesburg in the morning or evening but I did not look at these).
Read on to find out what I discovered…
The map below, generated by the excellent Great Circe Mapper, shows the core trunk routes between Europe and South Africa. Many other options exist via Turkey, the Gulf or North Africa. East African carriers like Ethiopian Airlines (see article) and of course Kenya Airways will get you there too.
All three alliances are represented. London-based British Airways is available for oneworld flyers.
Greater Lufthansa represents Star Alliance with flights from Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich. Lufty’s leisure arm Edelweiss Air flies to Cape Town from Zurich but I have left this one out of the full analysis as I struggled to get fares data.
Air France, KLM and Virgin Atlantic offer to carry Skyteam travellers. German leisure carrier Condor has flights to both Jo’burg and Cape Town but is not part of an alliance.
My first project as an independent airline consultant back in 2014 was in South Africa. I helped British Airways franchisee Comair bring their pricing and revenue management up to speed. They put me up at the Protea Hotel OR Tambo, which had great views of the airport. The sight of BA, Air France and Lufthansa A380s all lined up in a row (pictured at the top of this article) was inspiring. Writing this article brings back happy memories.
I took a week of schedule data from next year, 9-Feb to 15-Feb-2025 and one week return fares, plus YQ (see article). I estimated average fares (including YQ) by assuming that each fare class contributes equally to revenue and constructing a weighted average yield on that principle.
Here is a summary of the scheduling:
Source: flight schedules for week of 9-Feb-25 to 15-Feb-25, Oliver Ranson’s analysis
BA have all of their flights scheduled as overnighters. This leads to long turn-around times when the aircraft is not producing revenue. Virgin Atlantic does the same on Jo’burg but not Cape Town, which returns during the hours of daylight.
Air France and KLM send most of their planes south during the day and back overnight for efficient utilisation and a roughly two hour turn-around in South Africa. Only Paris to Jo’burg on Air France is allowed a long turn-around.
Lufthansa’s Frankfurt flights and the Swiss services ex-Zurich are double-overnighters. Their Munich operations head south overnight and back during the day. This means that connecting passengers have a better choice of timings on Lufthansa than with anyone else.
Leisure-focused Condor with it’s fabulous hooped livery has double-overnighters and seven to 11 hour plus turn-arounds. As we shall see, these are probably low revenue flights so their decision to fly this way looks odd. Fortunately for their shareholders there are only a few services a week.
So does this all tie in with the theory that flights are scheduled this way because business travellers want overnight services in both directions?
To help figure this out I plotted two charts (below).
The one at the top shows my estimate of the contribution of first and business class as a proportion of total revenue and how this compares with turn-around time.
The one at the bottom shows total flight revenue and compares this with turn-around time. The total flight revenue is calculated at 100% seat factor, so actual revenue will probably be a bit lower. I chose 100% because flights to and from South Africa are renowned as always being fully-booked.
The key at the bottom shows which airline is represented by each coloured blob.
Source: flight schedule, capacity and fares data including YQ for 12-Feb-25 to 19-Feb-25 return trips, Oliver Ranson’s analysis
Flights on the left are fine. They turn-around quickly for efficient utilisation. Flights at the top are fine too as they produce plenty of revenue to justify the long waiting time in South Africa.
Flights in the square “zone of high opportunity cost” are more worrying. Their revenue contribution is low(ish) but the opportunity cost is high.
Here are my observations:
1. On the British Airways, Swiss and the Lufthansa Frankfurt to Jo’burg services the long turn-around time is most likely justified due to the high modelled revenue contribution of these flights, a combination of high fares and many premium cabin seats
2. The $800k+ flight is a British Airways A380, the only A380 currently scheduled on the route, the “low” $350k BA flight is the Gatwick service – $800k on the A380 flight, even as a slight over-estimate (100% seat factor remember…), is extraordinary – to be honest, the sceptic in me thinks this is too good to be true, but even if I am way out it does not change the fact that extremely high contribution of first and business class revenue on this route justifies the long turn-around time
3. Lufthansa is right to put it’s Munich services with a short turn-around, for their modelled revenue potential is relatively low – the same goes for Air France and KLM
4. Air France’s Jo’burg service is comfortably producing higher revenue and more revenue from business class than it’s Cape Town service, so their long turn-around may be justified
5. Virgin Atlantic’s Jo’burg service does not look like it is going to provide such a valuable premium from it’s long turn-around as BA achieves – they are doing the right thing returning Cape Town in the day time, but keeping a plane at Jo’burg all day looks a bit weak
6. Condor’s decision to leave it’s planes at the airport in South Africa all day looks odd as they have low business class traffic and low revenue
7. Quick turn-around flights produce about $300k to $400k revenue while long turn-around flights outside the zone of high opportunity cost produce about $400k to $500k.
If Condor and to some extent Virgin Atlantic were able to bring back their planes from South Africa a bit earlier and rotate them somewhere elsewhere they might stand a chance of earning more revenue.
As it is the planes do get back late, but this is more like 8pm late rather than the curfew-busting 10pm late. I would be surprised if slotting in an overnight to somewhere like Dubai is not a better option than leaving the aircraft in South Africa all day.
It looks to me like Virgin Atlantic is copying BA. Condor might be copying Lufthansa, but then again they might also have agreements with travel agents whose customers find this schedule desirable.
I would be interested to know why both Virgin Atlantic made the decisions they did. I would also be interested to know what it is about Amsterdam that is different to London. Answers on a post card please…
And what of Norse Atlantic? I am sure they are doing the right thing by bringing the planes back from South Africa with a short turn-around. KLM, Lufthansa and to some extent Virgin Atlantic prove that you do not need to be a double-overnight operator to succeed in this market. I hope the new South Africa operations are successful for Norse Atlantic.
oliver AT ransonpricing DOT com
oliver DOT ranson AT inkaviation DOT com