Startup Keeps Africa's Jet Set Aloft
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania—Susan Mashibe left her native Tanzania at age 19 to fly jetliners in the U.S. But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, she returned home to help reshape African private air travel.
Today her company, Via Aviation, services clients including oil billionaires and top governments officials. It is one of very few in Africa that support business jets with necessities such as catering and hangar space. In another rarity for the continent, Via accepts credit cards.
Susan Mashibe started Via Aviation in 2003 with $20,000 in funding to offer private jets in her native Tanzania, services common in more developed markets.
Africa, which is larger than the U.S. and China combined, has a tiny fraction of their air connections. A flight between Senegal and Ghana, roughly the same distance as New York to Miami, can cost $1,200 and involve stops in two other countries. The only connections between Tunisia and Kenya entail routings through Europe or the Middle East that almost double the trip distance.
That lack of quick, affordable connections is starting to squeeze Africa's expanding economy. In response, more executives and rich Africans are turning to pricey business jets.
"It's an essential business tool," says Tony Elumelu, a Nigerian investor who recently flew from Nigeria to Tanzania via Rwanda and back on a corporate jet to avoid flying through Europe. "If you spend 24 hours or 36 hours going from one country to another, the monetary cost is much more than the cost of the private aircraft."
The number of private planes based, operated and owned in Africa has risen 20% from five years ago, according to aviation research firm JetNet LLC. Canada's Bombardier Inc. projects that Africa's business jet fleet will more than double by 2032, to about 960 planes.
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But African airports' lack of basic ground services complicates getting around, even on a private jet. GainJet Aviation SA, a Greek airplane charter firm that flies around Africa, flew a head of state to central African two years ago and landed with a load of dirty dishes—only to learn the airport lacked catering or washing facilities.
"The crew actually sat on the tarmac all night cleaning the dishes in buckets of water," said Andrew Hallak, head of marketing at GainJet. He declined to name the client or the country.
That's where Ms. Mashibe's company fits in. Such firms, known as fixed-base operators, are common in developed countries but just emerging in Africa. Evergreen Apple Nigeria Ltd., launched in 2011, offers fueling services, maintenance and even conference rooms with plasma televisions that can handle video conferences.
The base operators support expanding ranks of airplane-charter companies. GainJet says it will meet rising demand for intra-African flights by opening its first African office this year, in Rwanda. Angola's BestFly Flight Support launched that country's first charter jet service last year.
When Ms. Mashibe got started a decade ago, Africa barely registered in global aviation.
In the summer of 2001, she had just received her pilot's license and was applying at Delta Air Lines Inc. Then came Sept. 11. She abandoned efforts to get a U.S. work permit and, with $20,000 in funding, decided instead to replicate an American fixed-base operation in Tanzania.
Her first move to set the company apart: accepting credit cards, including specialty cards designed for fuel purchases. Previously, anyone flying a private plane in Tanzania had to pay for fuel in advance or carry cash exceeding $20,000.
Thanks to one of the fuel cards, Ms. Mashibe landed her first customer, South Africa's then-Vice President Jacob Zuma. When Mr. Zuma's entourage arrived in Tanzania, they received fuel, a flight plan and weather reports.
"They were so surprised that they took me under their wing and told me what else I could do," Ms. Mashibe said. South African officials didn't respond to requests for comment on the episode.
Via Aviation is now approaching $1 million in annual revenue and has been profitable seven of the past nine years, Ms. Mashibe said. But the company has faced turbulence along the way, she said.
Airport officials in Dar es Salaam hinted that "facilitation fees" would help her company get started and customers have requested receipts for more than they paid, Ms. Mashibe said. Refusing to pay bribes made life tougher. Airport officials blocked planes she had serviced from the hangar and banned her customers from the airport's VIP immigration line, she said.
"If an American had to put up with the things I had to put up with, they would have given up," Ms. Mashibe said. She said she fought back by flooding airport authorities with fax and email complaints.
The head of the Tanzania airports authority, S.S. Suleiman, said he wasn't aware of Ms. Mashibe's allegations. "It's a big, big place," he said of the airport.
Eventually Tanzanian officials let fixed-base operators send their passengers through a separate immigration queue and buy fuel supplies from other than a state monopoly.
The director general of Tanzania's civil aviation authority, Fadhili Manongi, said the authority had updated regulations to allow more competition and improve the airport functioning, but this wasn't specifically due to Ms. Mashibe's persistence.
"When we change anything, we invite all stakeholders, including Ms. Mashibe, to give their views," Mr. Manongi said.
Ms. Mashibe's efforts have gotten noticed. Initiative for Global Development, a nonprofit group run by former U.S. ambassador to Tanzania Mark Green, selected Ms. Mashibe as one of its "emerging leader fellows" in recognition of her work to boost African business.
The African Business Aviation Association, a one-year-old trade group for private aircraft operators, is meanwhile encouraging other African countries to follow Tanzania's liberalization.
"It's an exercise in patience," said association head Rady Fahmy.
Write to Heidi Vogt at heidi.vogt@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared August 16, 2013, on page B3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Startup Keeps Africa's Jet Set Aloft.
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