FlySafair: R1 sale set '°"new domestic aviation record"

Cape Town - FlySafair has taken the optimistic, highroad approach to its R1.00 birthday sale crash, apologising to customers for the manner in which its servers crashed within hours of its launch.

In celebration of its first year in business, the low-cost carrier released 30 000 tickets for just R1.00 each on 25 August, including airport taxes, for travel on any of its routes between now and March 2016.

The airline said it has set a "new record in domestic aviation since it was essentially paying passengers to fly, as airport taxes are about R150".

FlySafair confirmed in a statement its website recorded more than 30 times the traffic volume of its highest performing day and despite double server capacity at the start of the sale the airline's tech partners had to add more than five times the normal server capacity to deal with the load.

"Our tech partners in the US, who have experience with sales of this nature said they had never seen demand at this level before,” Kirby Gordon, VP of Sales and Distribution for FlySafair said.

“We regret that many people were unable to access the site to take advantage of this incredible deal. We knew going into this promotion that there would be risks – the anger that was evident among consumers was definitely one of them. But we’ve been thrilled by stories of children going to see the ocean for the first time, and families having a chance to reconnect after years of not seeing each other. This made it all worth it.”

On the day of the sale the top was trending with many passengers taking to social media to vent their frustration.