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Johannesburg / Bloomberg
Fastjet Plc’s new chief executive officer said he may replace the African discount carrier’s planes with smaller ones and move its head office to a city somewhere on the continent from London to help end losses.
The Airbus Group SE A319 jets used by Fastjet may be too large for the markets they serve, Nico Bezuidenhout said in an interview. It also doesn’t make sense to run an African airline “from 5,000 kilometers away,†according to the executive, who moves to his new post from South African Airways on August 1.
Former Fastjet CEO Ed Winter quit amid clashes with investor Stelios Haji-Ioannou after warning that full-year earnings would miss analyst estimates and that the company was running short of cash. Bezuidenhout, 39, said the carrier must modify the low-cost model to better fit Africa’s operating environment.