Hayibo.com - Competition Commission acts to ensure tourists can still be ripped off after landing

Competition Commission acts to ensure tourists can still be ripped off after landing

PRETORIA. The Competition Commission says it will investigate South Africa's major airlines after they noticed ticket prices during the World Cup were noticeably higher. An airline spokesperson said it was unclear why they were being targeted when everything else in the country was uniformly expensive during the football showpiece.

Hotels, car and house rentals and advertising rates across all media platforms are among some of the other items set to cost three times more than normal during June that are not being investigated.

Asked why only airlines were being targeted, a spokesperson for the Competition Commission, Dozi Botha said it was because nobody from the Commission owned an airline.

"We're all looking to the World Cup as a means of paying off the mortgages on our third homes," he said.

"We need to ensure that tourists can still afford to be ripped off after they have landed," he said.

Meanwhile FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke has called on Jacob Zuma to speak to his German and British counterparts Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown in an attempt to counteract negative sentiment towards the South African World Cup that is emanating from Europe.

But a spokesperson for Zuma, Tentacles Gwangwa, said it was unlikely Zuma would broach the topic with the European leaders. "We are of the opinion that the only thing to fear is FIFA itself - our copyrighted, unreasoning and unjustified controller."

He said as far as he was concerned British and German soccer fans were embracing both the World Cup and South Africa, suggesting the only negative sentiment was emanating from an office block in Zurich, "which may or may not house the headquarters of FIFA."

"The Germans and Brits have been coming to South Africa for years," said Gwangwa. "But this is our first World Cup.

"If it wasn't just about the money and FIFA were genuinely interested in Africa we would have hosted the World Cup a long time ago," he said.