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| Image by JRC Aviation |
Hello Aviators, and welcome back to another blog. I'm sure the title has excited you all, so rather than waste your time with formalities, let's dive into it. There is no lie in the title, the first airline founded by a Black Woman was founded by a South African woman, her name is Sizakela Mzimela and the name of the airline was Fly Blue Crane. Until this moment, the most in terms of women empowerment in aviation that we had, was female captains or all-female crew-operated flights, but clearly, Sizakela saw an opportunity. Let us just get a brief understanding of this woman who started Fly Blue Crane.
SIZAKELA MZIMELA
Sizakela Petunia Mzimela, was born in South Africa but grew up in Swaziland. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Statistics from the University of Swaziland, she then came to South Africa and attended the University of Pretoria's Global Institute of Business Studies. In 1991 she got a job as a research analyst at Standard Bank before moving on to Total SA in 1996. She then moved to South African Airways where she held various roles including executive vice president of global sales. In 2003, she moved to South African Express, where she held the role of CEO until 2010, it is important to note that the airline was profitable during her time. In 2010 she was called back up to the troubled National Carrier and became the first black female to be Chief Executive Officer of South African Airways. She left this role in 2012 and then in 2015 started Fly Blue Crane, it is important that during this period, she was also the first woman in the world to be a part of the International Air Transport Association Board (IATA). These are quite some significant achievements, especially when you consider that during her time, the Aviation industry was predominantly a white-male field.
Fly Blue Crane
The airline was established in 2014 but took to the skies in September 2015, the airline was established as a Regional Carrier to provide some healthy competition to Airlink as well as South African Express. The airline started by offering services out of their operations Hub O.R. Tambo International Airport, to Bloemfontein, Nelspruit and Kimberley. The airline used two 50-seater Embraer 145 aircraft when starting out, the airline then added more routes to Cape Town and Mthatha and at some point required a larger capacity aircraft which is when a Boeing
737-300 was leased by the airline. What made the airline unique is that it offered a balance between a low-cost carrier as well as a full-service carrier while operating on under-serviced routes. In 2016, the airline had prospects of expanding to other African countries such as Namibia, Botswana and Zambia. Another unique approach the airline took, is to hire their own ground handling staff rather than use the airport-provided ground staff.
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| Image by Bianca Renz |
What went wrong?
After about a year of operations, Fly Blue Crane started experiencing some financial difficulties, money was owed to creditors and the airline simply needed more funding for this. At the end of 2016, the financial situation had worsened so much that the airline entered into business rescue, which is a form of bankruptcy protection. The aim was to restructure the organisation and its operations while also attempting to find an investor to provide a much-needed capital injection to turn the financial situation around. Talks were in place with a Gulf equity partner to acquire around 25% of the company ownership, but unfortunately, this deal fell through, a major contributor to this was that Fly Blue Crane had previously received a R30 Million loan from the Industrial Development Corporation and the loan agreement stipulated that the airline cannot negatively harm state-owned carriers which would likely occur with some gulf capital injection.
At the start of 2017, Fly Blue Crane grounded all flights as a result of low cash flow, the decision was made to give greater focus to the rescue process in the hopes that the airline would return stronger. The decision to ground the airline was heavily debated by industry experts as it would be harder to regain customer confidence after the grounding. At the time, SA Express had also been grounded which gave Fly Blue Crane a unique opportunity, but unfortunately, they had also been grounded.
After a while of constant talks between business rescue practitioners and stakeholders, it seemed evident that a potential solution was not in sight, staff and service contracts were not renewed and aircraft were returned to lessors. Operating licenses for the airline lapsed and eventually the Airline announced that it was no longer operating.
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| Image by Philip Schutz |
An important factor to note that has been often considered as one of the many factors that contributed to the Fly Blue Crane's downfall is Airlink and its predatory pricing practices. Before the airline collapsed, Fly Blue Crane had taken Airlink to court over the Johannesburg to Mthatha route. According to reports, before the entry of Fly Blue Crane into the market, Airlink charged R4000 for a return flight but after Fly Blue Crane charged R799 for a one-way flight, the airline slashed their prices to R2000 for a return flight which was below the airline's average variable cost. The court also found that after the demise of Fly Blue Crane, Airlink bumped back their prices to the initial amount. In the court proceedings, it was found that Airlink had violated the Competition Act by abusing its dominance between September 2012 and August 2016. The court had also found that Airlink was a contributor to Fly Blue Crane exiting the route, their only competitor on the route at that time.
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What happened after the Airline's collapse
After the Airline stopped operating, Siza Mzimela moved on to several roles which included returning to SA Express as an acting CEO, Chief executive of freight rail at Transnet and also holding various Non-executive director roles at various companies including Woolworths Holdings LTD. As for Fly Blue Crane, it will forever remain a beacon of inspiration and a mystery of what could have been achieved by this remarkable woman. Thank you, aviators, for tuning into this blog and taking the time to read it, until the next one STAY FLYING HIGH.
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| No image credits available |
**DISCLAIMER. ALL IMAGES USED IN THE BLOG DO NOT BELONG TO ME, ALL IMAGES USED HAVE BEEN FOUND ON PLANESPOTTERS.NET AS WELL AS JETPHOTOS.COM. ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS NAMES HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE IMAGES SO AS TO NOT CLAIM THE IMAGES AS MY OWN**
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