The crazy R9 FlySafair ticket sale saw the airline selling out more than 50 000 seats with many consumers using several devices at one time.
The sale, which kicked off promptly at 9am on Wednesday, lasted just under five hours, with the last few tickets selling out just before 2pm.
“We’re pleased with how the sale went this morning” said Kirby Gordon, Chief Marketing Officer at FlySafair. She added that the website handled record volumes of traffic this year and sales rolled though without hassle.
The airline reports that there were over 1 425 378 people actively trying their luck compared to last year’s sale where it saw 1 225 828 people hit their waiting room.
“During peak demand this year the airline processed record sales of 492 tickets a minute up from 195 tickets a minute last year. In the end 50 372 seats were sold for R9 across 16 487 individual bookings.
This year’s waiting room also featured a R9 fare finder tool.
“The R9 ticket finder tool alone handled 102 million requests during the sale” said Gordon.
Most tickets were sold on flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town, as well as Johannesburg and Durban. Johannesburg to George, and Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth also featured prominently.
“More than 49% of the shoppers were based in Gauteng with 21% in the Western Cape, 10% in Kwa-Zulu Natal and 4% in the Eastern Cape. We hope that this sale has given many people who’ve not yet been able to fly the opportunity to experience air travel” said Gordon.
“Every year we get stacks of pictures on social media of people showing us how many devices they were using to try and access tickets. It was interesting to see 479 gaming consoles and 3100 Smart Televisions sitting in the waiting room this year too,” said Gordon.
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