South Africa's newest airline, LIFT, has just started accepting reservations. The airline is odd -- it will operate one of the oldest A320 fleets in the world, and also promises to offer a world-class customer experience. All of this comes as aviation in South Africa in general is struggling, as South African Airways is more…
Continue reading: LIFT, South Africa’s Newest Airline With Old Planes And Wine Flights
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Hey Ben.
“ the founder of kululu, a South African low cost carrier),”
I think it’s actually kulula instead of kululu
Thanks 🙂
Not sure if it's irony or good, old-fashioned needling behind an Uber executive naming his new airline Lift.
Yeah, good luck with that. Global isn't exactly well known for their stellar reliability (either in operations or payments).
Whether this is the one or not, time will tell. But I do believe that prosperous airlines will be born from the detritus of today's airlines - with their lease costs being a mere fraction of those of existing airlines.
@Sean M I do always look forward to your comments, especially with regards to African aviation, but in this particular case are they a competitor of yours?
@Peter - No, absolutely no relationship past or present with Global. I have however interviewed and hired many of their former staff who seem to unanimously tell the same tale.
I’ve been on these Global A320’s many times. They often operate flights for Mango and Kulula when their own aircraft are offline for maintenance or technical reasons. The A320’s may be old but they are meticulously maintained. There is no way an ordinary traveler will know he or she is on a 30 year old aircraft. I for one will support them, it is so much nicer traveling on an A320 than the clapped out 737’s that are plying our skies. Gidon Novick is a great guy and I wish him all the best for his new venture.
Why can’t airlines use an oxygen assistance for all travelers with a canister of oxygen to board then plug into the airline system when seated with a completely inclosed face mask
Flew a Global Aviation A320 operating for kulula JNB-CPT. I can't relate to @Chris, it definitely felt old. Still had the US Airways bulkheads. On takeoff from JNB we had to fly "low and slow" with the wheels down for about 30-45 minutes to "let the brakes cool down". All after a relatively short taxi on a cool day in winter. A very memorable experience but not for the right reasons.
I read now everything about Lift and I certainly will NOT fly on any of their planes.
I was lucky all my life to fly with top airlines
and top Planes and would not like to be on
a 30 year old plane. Good luck to everyone
just an FYI that you cannot book direct with the airline - they do not accept USA (or any non-South African) credit cards or EFT. I spent time researching why I was getting errors, and had to wait overnight for a respond on email (twitter response was email us ). You an use Expedia and book the flights, and you will have 24 hours to cancel under USA guidelines. What is interesting is that it will show as Hahn Aviation - a 3rd party booking system that some airlines use for their back edn tech. So you have Lift, which uses Global Aviation as its backbone and Hahn Aviation as their booking engine/GDS.
They used to appear on Google flights too - but no more - at least not for flights I am looking for.
So far not impressed - they should have an FAQ about the payment process limitation.
Business class seats are 3 wide with middle seat block (hello BA!), 33" pitch. Planes are older A320.
We are booked on BA (who cancelled our original 16:00 flight and never told us) using AA points - so may try Lift to see how it is, and have BA as a backup 90 minutes later...just in case. (we can always cancel our BA flight before travel and get the points back)