Interview: Mbuvi Ngunze, Kenya Airways CEO

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After several months in the doghouse, management at Kenya Airways (KQ) have bounced back from their worst ever financial performance by announcing an urgent restructuring plan. The ailing flag-carrier now aims to restore profitability under an 18-month turnaround strategy developed by consultants McKinsey & Company.

Many analysts are reserving judgement on the plan until further details are disclosed, but chief executive Mbuvi Ngunze promises that a slew of measures will help reverse last year's devastating 25.7 billion shilling ($254 million) loss.

Ostensibly turning his back on Project Mawingu, the ten-year growth strategy launched in 2011, Ngunze is pursuing an urgent overhaul of KQ's finances in a bid to raise up to $346 million. Some $200 million of that will be generated from unspecified cost-cutting measures – job losses are widely expected – with the remainder coming from the sale of four Boeing 777-200ERs and other assets...

Interview: René Décurey, Air Côte d'Ivoire CEO

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West African aviation was dealt a heavy blow in 2002, when Air Afrique ceased operations and the sub-region lost its only transnational carrier.

Based in Ivory Coast's economic capital Abidjan, the pan-African airline had been launched in 1961 as a joint venture between two French airlines: flag-carrier Air France and the now-defunct Union Aeromaritime de Transport (UAT). Two-thirds of Air Afrique's capital was held by an alliance of West African states, ensuring strong political support across the sub-region.

Following its demise, regional powerbrokers came together again in 2004 under the auspices of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to establish a successor. Their efforts delivered ASKY Airlines, the Togo-based carrier part-owned by Ethiopian Airlines.

Air France and Abidjan may, perhaps, have felt sidelined by the move, but they would not be out of the picture for long...

Interview: Frank Legré, Air France SVP Africa

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As one of the largest and best-known airlines in the world, it was no surprise that Air France pulled out all the stops when unveiling its cabin upgrades last year.

The French flag-carrier introduced its new First, Business and Economy class products at four stations across the global network: Paris, of course, was a no-brainer; so too was America's financial hub, New York; likewise, perhaps, for the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai – but the fourth destination left many observers scratching their heads.

Libreville, the capital of the West African nation of Gabon, rarely finds itself bunched together with the New Yorks and Parises of the world. Yet it was this city of less than 800,000 people that rounded off the quartet...

Interview: Muneer Bankole, Med-View Airline CEO

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Less than a decade after starting life as a charter operator for the Hajj pilgrimage, Nigeria's Med-View Airline is building up its scheduled network across West Africa while looking for expansion opportunities beyond the sub-region.

"We are moving gradually in the next 12 months to make additional inroads into four new destinations: Abidjan [in Côte d’Ivoire], Conakry [in Guinea], Dakar [in Senegal] and probably Liberia," chief executive Muneer Bankole said during the IATA AGM in Miami in June.

The addition of several regional points will be a major leap for the Lagos-based carrier, which presently deploys five Boeing 737 Classics on scheduled services to four domestic cities (Abuja, Port Harcourt, Yola and Enugu) plus Accra in Ghana...

Interview: Rene Gsponer, Air Namibia Acting CEO

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"We know the low-cost carriers will come. It's just a matter of when," Rene Gsponer, Air Namibia's acting managing director, said in a stone-faced interview at the IATA AGM in Miami. "But we are ready for them – much more than we were two years ago."

A Swiss national, Gsponer landed the job of chief operating officer and accountable manager at Air Namibia in October 2013, following a lengthy stint as one of IATA's senior consultants.

His appointment came in the midst of a painful restructuring period at the Namibian carrier, whose government owner was rapidly losing patience with the parastatal for its heavy financial losses. After commissioning IATA to develop an urgent turnaround strategy, the airline's board was so impressed by Gsponer that it put him in charge of executing what had now become a do-or-die plan.

It took just one year for the consultant-turned-manager's vision to bear fruit, with Air Namibia announcing four consecutive months of profit in November 2014 for the first time in its history...

Interview: Adrian Hamilton-Manns, FlyAfrica CEO

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Just one year into operations, pan-African low-cost carrier FlyAfrica is making good on its ambitious growth plans by launching a new subsidiary in Namibia and securing political backing for a third offshoot in Gabon.

The airline group, which began flying from Zimbabwe in July 2014, is headed by chief executive Adrian Hamilton-Manns and part-owned by South African arms dealer Ivor Ichikowitz. Its business model involves setting up franchises across Africa through joint-venture agreements with local partners.

But despite spreading its wings faster than London-listed competitor FastJet – which first exported the European low-cost model to Africa in 2012 – the group has not been immune to the continent's regulatory headwinds...

Cape expectations

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Long-running management turmoil at South African Airways (SAA) took another twist in August, when human resources boss Thuli Mpshe became the latest person to head up the lossmaking flag-carrier in an acting capacity.

Mpshe took over the reins from Nico Bezuidenhout, the boss of SAA's low-cost subsidiary Mango, who has twice been called on to steady the ship after full-time appointees fell from grace.

His immediate predecessor, Monwabisi Kalawe, got the chop after apparently stepping on the wrong side of powerful chairperson Dudu Myeni.

Amid endless reports of boardroom bust-ups and personal feuds, Bezuidenhout succeeded during his brief tenure in executing SAA's emergency 90-day action plan and resurrecting the stalled long-term turnaround strategy...

Interview: Tabassum Qadir & Javed Malik, Skywise Co-Chairpersons

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When Pak Africa Aviation emerged in 2013 as a potential white knight for 1time Airline, the failed South African carrier, almost nothing was known about the private-equity group fronted by Tabassum Qadir and Javed Malik.

Aside from confirming that investors in Pakistan and Dubai were funding Pak Africa, Qadir and Malik kept a tight lid on the organisational structure of the group – which had ambitious plans not only to resurrect 1time, but to franchise its brand across Africa through a wave of mergers and acquisitions.

Even Erik Venter, the combative chief executive of Comair, South Africa’s largest private carrier, was in the dark about the company...

Interview: Mohammed Yassin, Daallo Airlines CEO

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When Mohammed Ibrahim Yassin, the chief executive of Daallo Airlines, describes his company as providing a “lifeline” to Somalis, he is not exaggerating.

“There was a time when there were no money transfers, no telephones, no postal system – we were everything for the country,” the airline boss recalled. “We were the link to the outside world. We transported not only people, but goods, money, medicine. It was quite a history. And still we are playing that role.”

Established in 1991, the same year that Soviet-backed dictator Siad Barre lost his grip on power, Daallo found opportunity in the declaration of independence by the north-western province of Somaliland...

Interview: Said Korshel, Somali Transport Minister

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In most places around the world, working in civil aviation would not be considered an especially dangerous calling.

Somalia, however, is not most places. On September 20, shortly before African Aerospace travelled to Mogadishu for this special report, Ali Mohamed Ibrahim, the general manager of Somalia’s civil aviation authority (SCAMA), was attacked by gunmen en route to his office.

The assassination attempt killed his driver and bodyguard, but Ibrahim managed to escape with his life. He is now receiving medical treatment in Istanbul, and we wish him well.

Such incidents are, regrettably, not uncommon in Somalia...

Somalia: Mogadishu Airport's facelift

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Abdullahi Mohamud, Somalia’s most senior immigration official, was working at Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport before the outbreak of civil war in 1991, and he still works there today.

Flicking between CCTV cameras on a huge widescreen display in his airside office, Mohamud said the airport has undergone radical changes for the better in recent years.

The introduction of biometric passports was among the most noticeable improvements. When Turkish Airlines launched flights between Mogadishu and Istanbul in March 2012, Mohamud’s staff would seize fake travel documents on almost every Europe-bound flight. That flow of asylum seekers has since run dry, with the federal government’s new E-passports proving too hard for human traffickers to forge...

Somalia: The UN and AMISOM keep the peace

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Only about half of the 50 or so aircraft movements per day at Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport are commercial transport services.

The other half are mostly operated by the United Nations (UN) and its myriad related agencies, providing a mixture of humanitarian airlifts; military support services for the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), the multinational force battling Al Shabaab; and diplomatic or other VIP transportation flights.

It is a complex web of operations that hinges on various overlapping partnerships, so the number of entities and corresponding acronyms can get overwhelming...

ASKY plans a home from Lomé

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Since launching operations in 2010, Togo's ASKY Airlines has cemented its status as the dominant home-grown entity in West Africa's fragmented aviation market.

The airline was founded at the behest of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), an alliance of 15 nations that correctly identified air connectivity as a potential catalyst for the sub-region's fortunes.

Today, ASKY deploys an eight-strong fleet – four Bombardier Dash 8 Q400s, three Boeing 737-700s, and one 737-400F freighter – to 22 points in West Africa, stretching from Dakar on the westernmost tip of the continent to the central African metropolis of Kinshasa.

And although 60% of its traffic is routed through the Togolese capital Lomé, chief executive Yissehak Zewoldi is not blind to the economic powerhouse across his western border...

Mystery of LAM's cabin lock-out

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The loss of LAM Mozambique Flight 470 on 29 November 2013 undoubtedly marked the darkest day in the East African flag-carrier’s 77-year history.

All 33 souls aboard the newly delivered Embraer 190 died when, according to preliminary investigations, Captain Herminio dos Santos Fernandes locked his co-pilot out of the cockpit and deliberately sent the plane hurtling towards Namibian soil at 6,000 feet per minute.

The suggestion that pilot sabotage was to blame only intensified the distress of LAM’s management team, which had been working tirelessly to remove the airline from the European Commission’s blacklist. Chief executive Marlene Manave and chairman Carlos Jeque both lost their jobs in the months that followed, with the board pledging a fresh start for the beleaguered airline...

Grounded Uganda’s seven-year hitch

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Air Uganda's ascension to IATA was supposed to be a watershed moment for the privately-owned carrier, heralding a new era of industry cooperation and paving the way for significant expansion of its turboprop fleet.

The seven-year-old airline joined the global club on 2 June 2014, having made significant progress in negotiations with Uganda's government over the acquisition of a strategic stake.

"Certainly the government does want to partner with us to create a strong airline for Uganda," chief executive Cornwell Muleya told African Aerospace shortly after receiving his IATA certificate. "There is willingness on both sides to ensure that we have a strong home-based airline out of Uganda – one which would facilitate the growth of the economy of Uganda. As the market grows, everybody wins."

But the upbeat mood was to be short-lived. Just one fortnight later, Uganda's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said it was withdrawing the Air Operator's Certificates (AOCs) of Air Uganda and two local freight carriers, Transafrik and Uganda Air Cargo...

Interview: Monwabisi Kalawe, South African Airways CEO

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Despite contending with a volatile boardroom and an irreverent local media, Monwabisi Kalawe, the new boss of South African Airways, sees a bright future for the troubled flag-carrier. Martin Rivers finds out why.

When Monwabisi Kalawe took on the role of CEO at South African Airways (SAA) last June – the fifth person to hold the title in as many years – he knew he was in for a rough ride.

South Africa’s heavily loss-making, state-owned flag-carrier has been castigated by local and international press for its apparent inability to stamp out management corruption and operational inefficiency. The announcement of a long-term turnaround strategy last year did not quell the protests, becoming the ninth such programme to be unveiled since the turn of the century...

South Africa: All's fare in love and war

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The battle for South African aviation is heating up, with four market entrants looking to break the duopoly enjoyed by SAA and Comair. Martin Rivers reports from Johannesburg.

South Africa may have the continent's largest domestic aviation market, but it is far from the most competitive one. Just two operators – state-owned flag-carrier South African Airways (SAA) and privately-owned Comair – provide domestic capacity in the country. SAA operates as a full-service mainline unit, while also running low-cost services with its Mango brand...

Tassili plugs the gaps

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Tassili Airlines, Algeria’s second national carrier, was established as a joint venture between state-owned oil company Sonatrach and Air Algérie in 1997. It became wholly owned by Sonatrach in 2005.

With its roots in the oil and gas industry – which accounts for 30% of Algeria’s GDP – the airline has traditionally focussed on ferrying oil workers across the vast North African country. But in March 2013, Tassili began deploying its fleet of 12 aircraft on scheduled domestic operations...

Interview: Abdel Aziz Fadel, Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister

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The decision by Britain's Foreign & Commonwealth Office to relax its travel advice for Egypt could not have come too soon for the North African country, whose leaders are desperate to consign the political upheaval of recent years to history.

Announcing the move on 8 November – two days before Cairo hosted the inaugural Egyptian Development & Strategies of Civil Aviation (EDSCA) conference – Britain said the Red Sea resorts of Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada were once again safe for holidaymakers. A fortnight later it added Cairo and the Great Pyramid of Giza to the list of approved destinations, easing the stranglehold on a tourism sector that contributes 12% of Egypt's GDP...

Air smiles at Ethiopian

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Articles about African aviation almost always pay heed to two inescapable truths. The first is the continent's undisputed economic potential, stemming from its vast natural resources and youthful, aspirational workforce. The second, less encouragingly, is the near-insurmountable challenges that prevent airlines from unlocking this potential.

Most politicians concede that civil aviation will play a key role in igniting and sustaining pan-African prosperity. In practice, however, a toxic mixture of bureaucracy, corruption and protectionism keeps much of the industry grounded. African governments still regard flying as a middle-class luxury deserving of heavy taxation. They are also in no hurry to liberalise regulations and bilateral restrictions that protect the status quo for privileged operators.

But there are some exceptions to the rule. State-owned Ethiopian Airlines has grown its turnover by 700% since 2005, and it plans to expand another fivefold by 2025...