SAA Redoes Sales Force In Shift To Corp., Group Travel

<B>SAA Redoes Sales Force In Shift To Corp., Group Travel</B>

By David Jonas

Now that it is a few months into its partnership with Delta Air Lines, South African Airways is restructuring its U.S. sales organization to focus on corporate sales and meetings and incentives. The carrier also has been improving several other areas, including revenue management, its fleet, premium inflight service and intra-African connections to improve its regional positioning and appeal to U.S. business travelers.

As a primary component of its relationship with Delta, SAA earlier this year launched the first-ever nonstop service between Atlanta and both Johannesburg and Cape Town, with return flights also stopping in Ft. Lauderdale. The new U.S. gateways replace Miami, which was used in coordination with former partner American Airlines. Code sharing with Delta gives SAA access to another 28 beyond destinations--the most allowed under the bilateral agreement between South Africa and the United States--via Atlanta and New York JFK, its other U.S. destination.

In fact, SAA and Delta offer the only nonstop service between the United States and South Africa, which according to SAA, can shave anywhere from six to 12 hours off total journey time. Other elements of the Delta partnership include frequent flyer reciprocity and joint business and first class lounge access.

According to Mark Ellinger, SAA executive vice president of the Americas, Delta will contribute an additional 25,000 passengers between the two countries. Last year, SAA's passenger totals on those routes increased to 307,000, of which more than 50 percent were business passengers.

Indeed, business traffic will be a primary focus for SAA's new sales organization, which includes a new vice president of North America sales, Simon Newton-Smith, recently snared from Virgin Atlantic, and sales directors in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. Starting this month, they are shifting their emphasis to the corporate decision maker.

"We still will be active with the large agencies, but really want to be talking to the buyer," Ellinger said, adding that the transition will include volume-based deals with back-end discounts. "Before, our contracts were simplistic, one size fits all. Now we will reward people for giving us more business, which definitely is a new approach for us."

Meanwhile, SAA is stressing South Africa as an important meetings and incentive destination. "We have seen a tremendous increase in incentive travel to the region, including groups from the very largest corporations," Ellinger explained, citing Maritz as one agency involved in such arrangements. "And because of the current exchange rate, South Africa now offers an amazing value for either meetings or incentive travel."

Another interesting wrinkle in SAA's new U.S. sales strategy is the use of RFPs for consolidators. The carrier currently is receiving back proposals and throughout this month and next will focus on consolidating its consolidator network to focus on shifting share.

Beginning in December, SAA will revamp its first and business class cabins on all 20 Boeing 747 aircraft. The first class cabin will use the same seats and design as Swissair, where Ellinger was a product manager before joining SAA last fall. Both cabins also will offer video-on-demand entertainment systems and a heightened level of inflight service.

Within Africa, SAA is adding frequencies to boost its regional hubs in eastern and western Africa. Those flights will eliminate the need to connect through Europe on certain intra-African city pairs.

Meanwhile, SAA's new revenue management and group bookings systems should enable the carrier to sell more seats more efficiently, and look at bookings from a network rather than on a route-by-route basis.

Despite its cooperation with Delta, SAA has no plans to join the Delta/Air France alliance, or any other. "We have a very promiscuous alliance policy and are in a very enviable position," Ellinger said, citing codeshare agreements with Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa, Thai and Varig.

SAA also code shares with Swissair and is 20 percent owned by its parent SAirGroup. "Our overall strategy," Ellinger said, "is to remain independent for as long as possible.