Airlink Flexes Its Muscles in Africa Focusing on Regional Routes
Photo Credit: Airlink is making its mark in southern Africa, focusing on local cities and not on the trunk routes. Airlink
Skift Take
On a continent still very much in love with the notion of a flag carrier, money-losing or not, privately owned airlines offering scheduled services remain something of a rarity. But carriers like South Africa’s Airlink are showing lumbering state-owned airlines how it’s done.
Upington. Sishen. Ndola. Pietermaritzburg. Nelspruit.
You’d be forgiven for struggling to point out these towns on a map of southern Africa. Yes, they’re in Africa.
Farming hubs. Mining settlements. Administrative centers. They’re never going to feature in any glossy travel magazine’s hot list of destinations. But they are key to the ongoing success of Airlink, one of Africa’s largest privately held airlines.
Airlink traces its roots to three small carriers — Magnum Airlines, Border Air and City Air —which merged in the 1980s to form Link Airways. That airline was liquidated in 1992 and bought out by two of its directors, Rodger Foster and Barrie Webb, and soon re-launched as Airlink. Since then it’s grown to become the largest independent airline in the region, serving 37 destinations in nine countries, carrying 1.5 million passengers per year.
From the beginning, Airlink’s strategy has been to operate as a regional fee
