On Wednesday, many people either got lucky and got one of the greatest deals this year or shed a tear because they lost out.
After a two-year hiatus, the FlySafair mega-sale returned with a splash this year. The airline released more than 30 000 tickets at R8 each, including airport taxes.
“It feels really special to bring back our famous R8 sale after the last two years,” said Kirby Gordon, the chief marketing officer.
“The pandemic, unfortunately, meant we had to hit pause on our annual mega-sale to refocus our efforts on securing jobs for our staff, the integrity of the business, and our place in the industry.
“After a couple of conservative years, we felt it was a good time to bring some joy to South Africans and their travel budgets,” Gordon added.
The airline made more than 30 000 seats available across its entire domestic route network for flights departing up until the end of October 2022 for the low price of R8 a ticket including all airport taxes.
A record-smashing 1.7 million South Africans flocked to FlySafair’s waiting room to try their luck at getting onto the site to secure the cheap seats.
Twitter was alive with waiting-room chatter. Many passengers shared their successful sales purchases, while others continued to share snaps of their waiting-room experience.
What I'm doing while in the waiting room 😄![CDATA[]]>😄#FlySafair #FlySafairR8 pic.twitter.com/QZPNPOUa6N
— Emma (@EmmaLovedH) May 4, 2022
@FlySafair you left me no choice this is how I showered. #FlySafair pic.twitter.com/quCyjhgEmc
— James Badenhorst (@milne_j_) May 4, 2022
Everyone be like this today in Mzansi. FlySafair is doing the things lol #flysafair pic.twitter.com/Sj2DdpfdfQ
— Moses Kas (@iammoseskas) May 4, 2022
The waiting room doors opened at 7am and the first randomly selected customers were given access to the site at 9am. In the end, the airline sold 31 713 seats – well above the 30 000 initially promised – at just R8 each, with the last sale ticket being sold at 6.11pm.
At its busiest point, the waiting room hosted a record 1.07 million people, all waiting to see if they would be one of the lucky ones chosen to access the site each minute.
“We’ve learnt a lot over the years since we ran our first sale in 2015 when we sold tickets at R1. Being wiser and more experienced, we’ve invested a great deal in our IT infrastructure and have introduced features like the waiting room to maintain order. ”