NEWSFLASH - 44,000 tickets made available by SAA at reduced prices for World Cup flights

South African Airways (SAA) announced this week that it had cancelled a contract to provide tickets to MATCH, the professional services company selected by FIFA to provide ticketing, accommodation and event information technology services to FIFA.

A spokesperson for SAA, Vimla Maistry, confirmed that the relationship between the two companies had broken down.

What this means for supporters going to South Africa is potentially reduced fares with SAA as they have had to let go of a large number of tickets previously reserved for MATCH.

Vimla Maistry

Initially Match booked 45000 return seats from SAA, but reduced them to only 1000. It was no longer viable for SAA to continue with the deal.

MATCH, according to allAfrica.com, were unavailable for comment yesterday, so we don't know why they reduced their reservation but it does point to reduced demand for hospitality packages or that MATCH have 'struck' a deal with another airline.

The tickets MATCH had reserved were for 'peak times' during the World Cup and as these have now become available, SAA are offering these tickets at reduced rates.