Mango turns five

The airline has carried over 7 million guests and presently flies more than 30 000km across South Africa daily. CEO Nico Bezuidenhout also celebrates five years captaining Mango.

"It has been an incredible couple of years," says Bezuidenhout, who notes that the airline has operated successfully in what is likely the most challenging period faced by global aviation. "Literally 18 months after our first flight the peak-price oil crisis hit the world economy in 2008 and saw flight prices escalate substantially. Ironically, as the oil price subsided and flight prices moved downward, the recession followed in 2009 and 2010, shrinking the travel market almost overnight. Now, with a slow recovery on the cards, increases in regulated charges are impacting sector growth." He says that in the current economy even a R50 increase could have a depressive effect on the market.

Commercial air travel must be 'commoditised and right-priced' to compete

Disposable income remains under pressure given the current state of the general economy, says Bezuidenhout. "Transport is a needs-based commodity, in particular air travel, as low-cost carriers compete against other modes of travel outside aviation, such as trains and bussing. In order to unlock further latent demand, and grow the market, it remains critical that air travel continues to be commoditised and right-priced." The more something costs, the less of it one uses.

Innovation and accessibility is increasingly key to market growth. "Mango was the first airline to retail flights through Shoprite and Checkers Money Market Counters," says Bezuidenhout. "We remain the only airline to accept store charge cards (Edcon) as payment online and through our call centre." Mango was the first airline to introduce FNB's Cell Pay Point secure payment system and the Nedbank NPay remote payment facility. "Toward the end of the first quarter in 2012 Mango will also be the first to offer WiFi on board our aircraft." In an over-supplied market where everything tastes like chicken, Bezuidenhout says his airline has to taste like beef.

'Aviation serves as an economic multiplier'

Mango remains on course with load factors averaging in the upper 80 percentile region and its new Lanseria Cape Town route showing encouraging growth. "Aviation serves as an economic multiplier in many instances," he says. "Our Cape Town-Bloemfontein route in particular has shown the success in downstream economic benefits that include increases in car rentals, staff capacity increases at airports and even increased retail spend among others as the sector grows. It is this benefit that is particularly typical to low cost travel - investment into routings that ultimately deliver up and downstream economic benefit, including job creation."

Bezuidenhout is upbeat and bullish when discussing Mango's next five years in the skies. "We plan to further develop our domestic presence while also starting to consider destinations outside our borders. Wi-Fi on board is only the beginning of a string of additional innovations we are planning."

"We want more South Africans to fly," he says. There will be a lot more orange in our skies.