South Africa, May 19 -- Price and convenience

The fortunate few, with cash or company-earned frequent flyer miles can, of course, treat themselves to business class, but that is not available to most of us.

In the last 15 years, I have done a lot of inter-continental travel - both for business and pleasure and in economy class as well as in the front of the plane - and the experiences have varied widely.

Much of our private flying - and I'll wager, most of that done by ordinary South Africans - has been driven by price and convenience. We are willing to pay a slightly higher fare if it means flying direct, for example.

South Africa, while it is an "end of hemisphere" destination, is still a highly profitable route for many airlines. T...