Flying from Johannesburg to Cape Town for less than R200 makes South Africa’s newest low-cost airline, Mango, seem very attractive. But does the airline believe in itself?
Mango has registered a list of derogatory variations on its internet domain name, Flymango.com, in an attempt to ward off websites that could be launched by its competitors.
Domain names such as Mangosucks.co.za, Vrotmango.co.za and Rotten-mango.co.za have been registered by the company.
It even registered Neverflymango.co.za, clearly having learnt from South African Airways’ (SAA) ordeal with an annoyed American passenger, Vernon E Six, who started the now-discontinued Neverflysaa.com in 2002 to air his views on SAA’s alleged poor service.
Could Mango be afraid of someone like Gregg Stirton — creator of Hellkom.co.za, a website that trashes Telkom — launching a site that complains about non-existent leg room, flight delays or poor service?
When asked about Mango’s apparent persecution complex, airline spokesperson Hein Kaiser told the Mail & Guardian Online that it is a strategy to prevent the airline’s competitors from registering websites that are critical of the Mango brand.
Regarding Mango customers wanting to voice their opinion (positive or negative), Kaiser said Mango would rather have such individuals get in touch with the airline.
However, Kaiser is certain that what he calls Mango’s ”honest and transparent” approach means there would never be a need for a consumer to launch Vrot-mango.com.
But perhaps Mango does need more than one website, because Flymango.com this week proved unable to handle the large numbers of excited travellers visiting the site to book cheap flights — it received 15 000 queries just in its first 10 minutes of operation. In its first 24 hours, it sold 30 000 tickets.
By Wednesday, the site still loaded at a snail’s pace, but Kaiser said the site’s bandwidth had been increased and technicians were working on improving it even more.
Nadine Prinsloo, marketing manager for low-cost competitor airline kulula.com, said Mango’s internet strategy is ”certainly very interesting”.
”They’re already gearing up for bad press,” she said, adding that kulula.com has not registered any derogatory variations on its internet domain name because there ”would never be a need for them”.
The CEO of 1time, Glenn Orsmond, said 1time — another Mango competitor — has also not registered such domain names. ”I think it’s funny. They’re obviously trying to protect themselves like SAA had to. It shows a certain lack of confidence in themselves, I think,” he said.
Both 1time and kulula.com this week announced reduced fares in reaction to Mango’s cheap introductory ticket offers.
Other domain names already registered by Mango include Go-mango.co.za, Mangocars.com and Mangocarrental.co.za. Perhaps flying isn’t the only thing on Mango’s mind.