Another low-cost airline expected in Dar this year

The founder of Fly540 is set to launch a low-cost airline in Tanzania later this year, in a move expected to raise competition in East Africa’s skies and drive down fares.

Don Smith said he had hired Brown Francis, a former senior executive at rival Fastjet, to head the new airline, putting him in direct competition with Fastjet, Air Tanzania and Precision Air for a slice of the domestic aviation market.

Fly-Sax, which operates charter flights in Kenya, said it was awaiting regulatory clearance before starting operations in Tanzania.

“We anticipate getting approval in the second half of the year. We are hoping it to be operational as early as the third quarter of 2014,” a spokesman for Mr Smith said via e-mail.

Mr Smith said the airline would seek to tap into Tanzania’s tourism market by offering domestic flights on routes like Mwanza, Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar and Mtwara using three 50-seater CRJ planes.

“We shall offer a combination of low-cost and charter fights,” he added.

The entry of Fly-Sax in the low cost carrier market pushes the number of budget airlines in the region to three. The other two are FastJet and JamboJet, which is expected to start operations on April 1.

But, given the size of the planes Fly-Sax is proposing to use vis-a-vis competitors like Fastjet, who use the A319, and considering that load factors in the region average 75 per cent, will it be economically possible for the firm to run a low-cost carrier?

“We are not seeking to be in competition with any airline. Our main reason for choosing the fleet that we did was to have greater frequency of flights. Also, by running an efficient and cost-effective airline, we can ensure that our prices remain competitive,” said the spokesman.

Fastjet’s A319 planes carry between 145-156 passengers.

JamboJet is proposing to use the B737 configured to carry 146 passengers, having ditched earlier plans to use its Embarers E-190 which carries 96 passengers arguing that this would translate to a relatively higher fixed cost per passenger making it harder to offer low prices.