London - Baggage carousels carrying buckets of water with fish sloshing around in them are not things the boss of British Airways owner IAG, Willie Walsh, or easyJet’s Carolyn McCall have had to confront.
But for Ed Winter, fish buckets are merely one of the new experiences the airline veteran has had to embrace while running African budget airline Fastjet.
The airline’s Tanzanian operation offers flights to and from Mwanza in the northwest. It is on Lake Victoria and a hub of the fishing industry in the east African country.
He explains: “Going to Mwanza and coming back with a bucket of fish is like going to the seaside here and buying a stick of rock. It is just what you do.”
Fastjet has now carried more than 40 000 pails of fish. It charges up to £10 – around $15 – a bucket or $6 if you pre-book. Winter says: “There are special containers to store the fish. We can set up charges for various baggage requests – we adapt.”
Accommodating fish buckets, however, has been the least of Fastjet’s worries since it was created in 2012. The company is now listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market.
EasyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou backed the business and it was formed out of a subsidiary of conglomerate Lonrho. AIM market personality David Lenigas – he of the recent Gatwick gusher fame – was behind the idea while he was at Lonrho. Lenigas’ trick is to spot a small company, expand it, shout about it then hand it over to experts in the sector and quit for another AIM tiddler.
Fastjet was over-ambitious at the start and has been much slower actually to get off the ground than it first claimed. The shares have never soared to the great altitudes which had been forecast and they’ve been further compromised by a number of capital raising exercises.
The airline now flies domestic routes from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and international flights to Zambia, Zimbabwe and Uganda. There are opportunities in Kenya and Winter says that eventually west Africa will be a great place to expand.
Fastjet benefits from international passengers coming into Dar es Salaam from the Middle East and is in the final stages of agreeing a deal with Dubai-based Emirates to offer passengers flights from Dar es Salaam.
As well as travelling with fish, operating in Africa has certain differences compared with Europe which Winter and his team have had to embrace.
The manner of paying is also far removed from European or American methods. “A lot of people don’t have a bank account”’ he explains, “and they are wary cards. But many people have a mobile.” So, now more than 30pc of revenues are through mobile money systems. But it isn’t all about Fastjet adjusting to how business is done in Africa.
When the airline first launched, customers would regularly turn up an hour before a flight with a bag of cash expecting to get on.
He says: “People were worried the flight would be cancelled so they didn’t trust to book in advance. Now people are booking early.”
Customers have also learnt to change their behaviour if they want to make sure they get on the plane. “The first week was difficult,” Winter says, “getting people to be on time.” He says they were used to many carriers arriving and taking off late. But Fastjet prides itself on punctuality and Winter says: “Now people know they have to be here on time.”
Daily Mail