Nico Bezuidenhout
Photo by: Duane Daws/Creamer Media
Beleaguered African low-cost airline fastjet, which is listed on the London Aim, announced on Thursday that it had appointed South African airline executive Nico Bezuidenhout as its new CEO. Bezuidenhout will take up his new post on August 1. He has been CEO of Mango Airlines, the low-cost subsidiary of the State-owned South African Airways group, since it was launched ten years ago.
“The [fastjet] board is delighted that Nico will be joining fastjet as CEO,” affirmed airline chairman Colin Child. “He brings strong commercial and strategic skills and a wealth of experience of operating a low-cost carrier. This experience, together with his detailed knowledge of the markets in which fastjet operates, will be invaluable to the company as it seeks to capture the growth opportunities in the region.”
During the decade he headed Mango, Bezuidenhout increased its share of the South African domestic air travel market to 25% and expanded the airline’s fleet to ten Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Under his leadership, Mango had the lowest unit cost in the South African aviation industry and the airline was profitable for eight of the past ten years.
“I am very pleased to be doing fastjet at this stage in its development,” he said. “Although market conditions are currently challenging, I am confident that we can build on the airline’s existing operational base to strengthen and develop the business and deliver on its considerable potential.”
Fastjet, which operates mainly out of Tanzania at the moment, made an operating loss of $37.9-million last year, although this was an improvement over its loss of $43.9-million in 2014. Its loss after tax for 2015 was $16.9-million (down from $58.5-million in 2014). Its cash balance at the end of last year was $28.9-million, as against a mere $1.4-million at the end of 2014.
Last year saw the airline’s passenger numbers increase by 32% (to 787 771), and, while fastjet Tanzania’s load factors fell by 6.6 percentage points to 66.7%, aircraft utilisation increased by 10%. Approval was received for flights between Tanzania and Kenya and fastjet Zimbabwe started operations. Legacy operations Fly 540 Ghana and Fly 540 Angola were shut down and route network rationalisation was begun.