12 percent of Tanzania’s FastJet staff face loss of their jobs in cost cutting measure

FASTJET’S BOARDROOM AND SHAREHOLDER WOES NOW HIT TANZANIA STAFF

(Posted 22nd August 2013)

A range of woes, as previously reported here, and incidentally backed up by other media like Air Transport World in their own investigative articles, in the boardroom and among shareholders now seems to have reached the airlines’ Tanzanian employees. Several, according to a report from Dar es Salaam, have already been laid off and more are expected to lose their jobs, up to 12 percent in fact according to the information passed on from what is a usually reliable source.

Comments attributed yesterday to the airline’s general manager in Dar es Salaam also seem to confirm the notion that discussions about redundancies have already taken place and are continuing, reflecting financial challenges for Fastjet, very likely rooted in their success to have sold a large number of tickets, according to some figures at hand over 40.000 at the very lowest fare, bound to impact of course on their bottom line.

Aviation observers continue to blame FastJet’s situation on the airline’s inability to access directly the much larger Kenyan market, the losses sustained in the premature start up of flights to Zanzibar which then had to be halted within weeks as the route bled money and the delay in commencing domestic flight operations in South Africa.

The planned first international flights though will commence on 27th September to Johannesburg and are still on course. Fastjet will initially operate three times a week using one of the airline’s A319 aircraft. Fares are said to start at 100 US Dollars, PLUS TAXES AND OTHER FEES, leaving customers again in the dark over what the final cost of a ticket will be until they actually purchase it.

Consumer organizations have now also reportedly taken an issue with this sort of advertising and are likely to make representations to government to compel all businesses, the airlines included, to publish the final and all inclusive price one has to pay, no exceptions permitted. Watch this space.