Africa's air travel industry

Fastjet CEO Ed Winter discusses problems with the air travel market in Africa.

日前，全球航空業領袖在南非開普敦呼吁相關各方應在非洲擴大民航基礎設施投資并提高民航安全性，以航空運輸業發展推動非洲經濟社會發展。突發的韓亞航空事故在帶給人們生命凋零的傷痛之余，也讓投資者對航空、旅游業產生危機感。受此事故影響，航空、旅游、保險等板塊的業績及股價紛紛下滑！

At times it’s probably a bit more difficult than we thought it might have been, and African airs is a bit like Europe was in the 70s or 80s, everything is controlled nationally by bilateral agreements between countries, a lot of protectionism, a lot of restrictions.

So how are you going to beat them where they have defeated others before you?

Here in Africa, we’re dealing with each individual country, what we can’t do is create a pan-African airline which is all one company. That just won’t work un-liberalized arena such as this. So what we were doing is constructing individual companies, but for the consumer, it will be one product. It’s a bit like a franchise.

It’s exactly a franchise.

If you think about it,

It’s exactly a franchise. You’re selling them the flag and the name.

Most hotel chains don’t actually have many hotels at all. You know, if you are going to a particular brand of hotel around the world, you know what standard you’re gonna get. Now we can do the same with aviation.

That still doesn’t address the problem of how those individual companies are going to solve the issues which have bedeviled African aviation.

We’ve shown two things, I’d say in a very small way in Tanzania. One is that we cannot break within that infrastructure, but also the local smuggle works. 38% of our passengers so far in Tanzania have been first time flyers.

It’s not clear whether Fastjet can ever become the carrier it aims to be, having posted a $56 million loss for the 18 months to the end of last year, the auditors KPMG said they had, in their words, significant doubts that the airline would be able to continue trading. Fastjet have brushed aside the concerns, but are aware of the risks. For now, the airline carries on.

You must have the temperament of a saint to be able to keep your cool during this process, because it must be absolutely, mind-bogglingly frustrating.

In the first few weeks, I found quite a lot of people in the office, things would happen, and they would say, oh, it’s Africa. I bent that phrase, I said I know it’s Africa, that’s where we are working, we know what the problems are, let’s just deal them.