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The low-cost model pioneered by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou that rocked Europe’s traditional airlines is spreading across Africa. Tickets went on sale last week for the first flights on Fastjet, the latest brainchild of the Greek entrepreneur, which will start flying from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania at the end of the month for prices starting at 32,000 Tanzanian shillings (£13) – plus the inevitable baggage charges and taxes.

Africa is ripe for aviation investment, with huge distances between cities and poor road and rail infrastructure. However, a poor safety record has blighted African airlines, with many carriers barred from European airspace by safety regulators.

source: Guardian.co.uk

In a move that has astonished the airline industry, not to mention EasyJet, Haji-Ioannou is preparing to launch a new airline, Fastjet. There are few further details as yet – simply a single, bright red webpage, Fastjet.com, bearing the message “‘by Stelios. Coming soon!’”.

We don’t yet know what sort of fleet he is planning, whether he has leased any aircraft, which routes Fastjet will fly or whether it will go head to head with EasyJet, in which the billionaire entrepreneur and his family retain a 38 per cent stake.

Haji-Ioannou has been engaged in a long and increasingly bitter battle with EasyJet management on a number of fronts, peace seemed to have broken out between the two sides just last week, when the board bowed to pressure to pay a special dividend to shareholders.

source: irishtimes.com

Aviation entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou announced plans for Fastjet – a start-up rival for established operators such as Ryanair.

Relations between easyJet and Sir Stelios have been decidedly uneasy in the last 18 months.

Although the tycoon and his family still own 38 per cent of easyJet that he began from scratch in 1995 (with a £5million loan from his shipping-magnate father), discussions between the two parties have been icy since Haji-Ioannou resigned from the carrier’s board in May 2010 in a row over strategy.

source: dailymail.co.uk