New promo not panic measure — AWA clarifies
A domestic airline operator, Africa World Airlines (AWA), has clarified that its decision to reduce airfares to GHȼ49 as part of a new promotion was to appreciate its customers.
The Head of Commercial Operations of AWA, Mr Richard Kyereh, stated that the discount was also not a panic measure to survive rising competition in the domestic space.
Speaking in an interview with the GRAPHIC BUSINESS on December 5 in Accra, he said the airline was rather well positioned to meet any competition in the domestic space.
New promo
Dubbed ‘Wow Wednesday’, the promotion offers the travelling public a one-way ticket from either Accra to Kumasi or Temale for GH¢49, and GH¢99 respectively.
The promotion which started on November 28, 2018 and was subsequently held on December 5 insists passengers must book their ticket on Wednesdays between 12p.m. and 5p.m. to enjoy the drastically reduced ticket price.
But, the Head of Commercial Operations stated that the move was not a panic measure in response to competition from other domestic players in the industry.
“The Wow Wednesday is not a panic measure to respond to competition from domestic airline operators. It is just to say thank you to our customers in the country,” he said.
He stated that aside the reductions through the promotion the airline's charges had remained the same since the beginning of the year, and that showed clearly that we were not under any pressure to make any panic decisions in relation to competition.
Main competitors
Beyond appreciation, Mr Kyereh observed that AWA planned to use the offer to encourage domestic air travel in the country as a paltry two per cent out of the over 30 million Ghanaian population travel by air.
Rather than airlines, he said the main competitor in the transport industry was the commercial road transport operators that had majority of the travelling market.
“We do not see the other domestic airline operators as competitors but partners with whom we will need to collaborate to grow the industry,” he added.
AWA in 2019
The Head of Commercial Operations stated that the airline planned to take advantage of the numerous opportunities both in the country and the Africa route in general.
He indicated that AWA was also preparing itself to increase its fleet of aircraft from seven to eight aircraft in order to be able to increase its frequencies to other parts of the country.
Again, he said AWA was ready to start a new route to Wa in the Upper West Region as soon as its airport was opened for commercial operation by next year.
“We will start a new route to Wa as soon as that airport is open for commercial operations by 2019,” Mr Kyereh added.