Fastjet, an airline which flies in East and Southern Africa, won an award as the Best Value Airline in the African continent during the 2018 Air Transport Awards in Ireland.
The award is Fastjet’s third accolade in as many quarters following the Skytrax World Airline Awards’ Best Low-Cost Airline in Africa and the World Travel Awards’ Leading African Low-Cost Carrier honours received in 2017, according to the airline’s press release.
“It is a tremendous honour to receive recognition by such prestigious awards from within our industry,” said Fastjet Chief Executive, Nico Bezuidenhout in the Press Release.
“It also serves as a validation for the substantial changes and significant enhancements made during the Stabilisation Plan which included a full network re-engineering process, a complete fleet changeover, a new reservation system launch and market entry of the Fastjet brand into Mozambique along with a move from London to Africa soil, amongst others.”
On a global level, All Nippon Airways (ANA), A Japanese airline, took the 2018 Airline of the Year, whilst Norwegian Air Shuttle took the Value Airline of the year.
“We are honored to receive the Airline of the Year Award and to have been recognised for the dedicated efforts made at ANA,” said Yuji Hirako, president and CEO of ANA.
“This has been a remarkable year for ANA as we continue to expand internationally, deliver the highest level of customer service and differentiate ourselves in the competitive airline industry.”
Other award winners include Air Baltic on Air Market Leader and Air Canada on Eco-Airline of the year.
Although other airlines operating in Zimbabwe are doing well, the country’s airlines, Air Zimbabwe has been meeting some challenges. Besides the $334 million debt which was taken over by the government, Air Zimbabwe has been facing challenges in getting new spare parts as its planes are outdated.
The government through the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development has been intending to buy three second-hand Embraer ERJ145 at a cost of US$6 million in order to increase its fleet and frequency of flights, as well as improve service delivery according to Zimbabwe Independence. Last year the Transport Minister Joram Gumbo said that the Government is set to acquire 15 aeroplanes as part of efforts to resuscitate the ailing Air Zimbabwe according to another local media.
The Hong Kong International Airport took the Airport of the year award and the Aviation Technology Achievement award was given to SITA a specialist in air transport communications and information technology, a company based in Switzerland.
The Leadership Excellence award was given to Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr from German and the Passenger Experience Achievement went to Cross-Border Xpress (CBX) from United States of America (USA).