Troubled African airline Fastjet (LON:FJET) has nabbed the boss of one its rivals to become its new chief executive.
Nico Bezuidenhout will take up his new job on 1 August, having been in charge of South African Airways' low cost carrier Mango for the past ten years.
Over that time, Mango has grown from a start-up to a 25% share of the South African domestic market with the lowest unit costs of any carrier operating in the market.
Colin Child, fastjet’s chairman, said that Bezuidenhout would bring strong commercial and strategic skills and a wealth of experience of operating a low-cost carrier.
Bezuidenhout adding that while conditions were challenging, he was confident he could build on fastjet’s current operational base.
Fastjet has been without a chief executive since March when Ed Winter stood down ahead of a meeting called by large shareholder easyGroup to remove him.
EasyGroup, the vehicle of easyjet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, has been highly critical of fastjet’s performance and cost structure recently.
It recently requisitioned a general meeting to remove Child as chairman.
Recent results revealed another year of heavy losses for the airline despite a 21% rise in revenues to US$65.1mln.
The company posted a loss of US$37.9mln while the cash outflow from the business was US$36.9mln.