Local airline announces significant changes in ticket pricing
South Africa’s biggest low-cost airline announced in March 2026 that it will implement a temporary fuel surcharge to help it cope with sharply higher global jet fuel prices resulting from the war in the Middle East.
Jacaranda FM Newswatch reported at the time that FlySafair had released a statement on rising fuel prices.
FlySafair said it has absorbed steep fuel cost increases to shield passengers from immediate airfare increases.
“With Jet A1 Fuel prices at South African coastal airports now up approximately 70% in just one week, and no clear end in sight, the airline has reached the point where it must pass on a portion of these costs to ensure the long-term sustainability of the airline and its low fare offering,” the airline explained.
The surcharge took effect on 12 March and was applied to flights departing on or before that date, reflecting the airline’s hope that this is a short-term crisis requiring a short-term response.
“We will be specifically itemising this temporary dynamic fuel surcharge on all tickets to ensure fairness and transparency to our customers,” said Kirby Gordon, Chief Marketing Officer at FlySafair.
Luckily, it seems FlySafair will now reduce the surcharge as jet fuel costs have improved.
According to BusinessTech and FlySafair's illustrative pricing, the surcharge rocketed to around R170 (Joburg to Cape Town) in early March and over R800 in April.
It began to drop slowly to an estimated R700 in May.
The airline confirmed that the current charges as of June are 40% below the maximum.
The move will deliver meaningful savings to South African travellers while maintaining the airline’s commitment to transparent pricing.
The most recent price reduction is the largest since the surcharge was introduced, but the company warned that conditions remain slightly volatile.
March 2026
The airline said that fuel typically makes up 50–55% of its direct operating costs.
At current price levels, the airline estimates an additional cost of around R35,000 per flight hour for each Boeing 737-800 aircraft in operation.
“The persistence and scale of these fuel costs have left us with no reasonable alternative,” says Gordon.
“Instead of increasing fares across the board or hiding costs, we have chosen to introduce a clearly labelled, temporary surcharge. This gives customers full visibility into what they are paying for and allows us to remove the surcharge once prices stabilise.”
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