Airlink CEO: South Africa is ‘one of the cheapest places to fly’ 

Aviation journalist Andreas Spaeth speaks with de Villiers Engelbrecht, CEO of South African network carrier Airlink, about how the arrival of 10 new Embraer E2 jets is supporting the next phase of growth at one of the region’s most successful airlines. 

Engelbrecht did not begin his career in aviation. A finance executive by background, he worked for Coronation Capital, which leased aircraft to Airlink and became a shareholder in 2006. He later joined Airlink’s board as a non-executive director before moving into an executive role in 2011, a progression he describes as a “natural evolution.” After becoming CFO in 2013, he succeeded co-founder Roger Foster as CEO in April 2025. 

That transition came at a pivotal moment. South Africa’s aviation market has been one of the continent’s most competitive and volatile, with several airline failures over the past decade, including the collapse and restructuring of South African Airways (SAA), now just operating 14 aircraft. Airlink, by contrast, has expanded steadily while remaining consistently profitable. Now, as the first of 10 Embraer E195-E2s enters service and strengthens what is already one of the largest fleets in the region with about 70 aircraft, Engelbrecht is overseeing the airline’s next stage of development.  

Andreas Spaeth met Engelbrecht at Airlink’s headquarters in Johannesburg. 

Spaeth: Airlink’s biggest re-fleeting in 30 years has just started during your first year as CEO with the arrival of the first Embraer E195-E2s. How will that go forward? 

Engelbrecht: We received the first E2 in September 2025 and have three out of a total of 10 E2s we ordered so far. We got four scheduled for delivery by the third or fourth quarter of this year and then three more are coming in the third quarter 2027. We had to go through the quite onerous process of a five-phase AOC application with the South African Aviation Authority to give evidence to them that we are capable to operate the type. As it significantly differs from the E1s we already fly, although it’s a variant of it. But we were able to put the E2 in service in December 2025 almost as planned, it was a fairly smooth process.  

I have to commend the authority for their proactive professionalism throughout the application process. Embraer also delivered it absolutely on time to us, and all evidence is that they will deliver the next four on time as well. It slipped by a month, but we are still on track for July or August deliveries this year. I don’t know what their secret sauce is to ensure on-time deliveries, it’s in their track record. 

Spaeth: For Airlink to deploy the E2 with 136 seats is a big step up from your E1 as your biggest aircraft so far with just 98 seats. What’s the rationale? 

Engelbrecht: We found that we need to lower the seat costs in a competitive market to compete with the LCCs. We evaluated all available narrowbodies, the E2, the Boeing 737NG and the A320ceo, as the newer MAXs and neos would have been too costly from a fixed cost perspective. But we decided to stick with what we do well, and that is operate Embraer aircraft. And we got quite fortunate as we were approached by the lessor market, there was a distress package of E2s available that hadn’t been taken up. And we achieved the same per seat costs as a narrowbody if you count it in a two-two configuration like the E2. Obviously, if you stuff 189 seats into a narrowbody, that changes the dynamic. But we’ve got the seat costs on the E2 low enough to compete with a narrowbody operator. And the E2 will be our biggest aircraft for probably the next 10 years. 

Spaeth: The permitted maximum number of seats on the E2 is 146 in a high-density version, but Airlink will stay with 136 seats? 

Engelbrecht: As we stepped into an existing package the lessors had already ordered from Embraer, we have a bit of a hybrid concept. The first three aircraft came with 136 seats in a single class. The next seven will be in a dual-class, 124 seat-configuration with 12 Business Class seats. That’s the reason why we haven’t deployed the all-economy class first version on our run between Johannesburg and Cape Town, because that in our experience requires Business Class, so we didn’t want to contaminate the product. Therefore, we deployed the first E2s on domestic routes where there is no demand for Business Class.  

When the dual-class E2s arrive, they’ll be deployed into the region, use new route opportunities or replace E1 activity, also on Johannesburg-Cape Town. As the E1s come in for C-checks, we also reconfigure them with six Business Class seats to make the cabins of all E-Jets consistent hopefully by mid-2027. 

Spaeth: Airlink’s fleet of about 70 Embraer aircraft is probably the most diverse Embraer fleet in the world. Some of the ERJ135 and ERJ140 jets are close to being 25 years old. How long will they stay on? 

Engelbrecht: We have more opportunities than we have capacity, so we are not going to give away capacity. In the southern African market, we don’t have this high demand, markets demand frequency rather than big capacity. We’ve got 27 ERJs, 11 ERJ-140s and 17 ERJ-135s. They’ve got a role to play in markets where you’ve got short runways, those aircraft are perfectly suited for that kind of operation.  

For the next five years I see the ERJs stay in the Airlink fleet, so they’ll be 30 years old by then, but from a cycle perspective they’re relatively young. Because of many constraints we face operating here in southern Africa, I see us consolidating some routes with a couple of ERJ flights a day now into a single E-Jet even before. So, we may start reducing activity of the ERJs. After that, we become a pure E-Jet operator, but we may have to sacrifice some routes. 

Spaeth: And you have a very eclectic mix of those as well. Does this make sense? 

Engelbrecht: We’ve got 40 E1s, these being E-170/175s and E-190s/195s. It turned out like this because post-COVID, we opportunistically took advantage of very good deals in the market. And we still enjoy some of those rates today. It’s a porridge of types and cabins, but that’s because of history.  

If I could, I would consolidate all that into a single type, using just the E-190 with 98 seats as our sole E-Jet aircraft. At the top end I would add the E2, provided it operates as promised, in a single 124-seat configuration. But for now, we retain all the capacity we can, so the incoming E2s grow our seat inventory. 

Spaeth: You mentioned operating constraints, which of them bother you most? 

Engelbrecht: You’ve got airport constraints, more and more so, airspace constraints and also on the apron, believe it or not. And then you’ve got pilot constraints, which is becoming more and more concerning for us. How you keep the pilot body going as there are more attractive opportunities elsewhere. I’ve heard some US-Dollar salaries paid to pilots in other areas and I couldn’t believe it. In such an environment the only option is to increase your revenue per departure, and for that you basically cut down on frequency and increase capacity on certain routes.  

Spaeth: Crumbling South African infrastructure and lacklustre service providers also seem to contribute to airline’s problems… 

Engelbrecht: There has been a sustained infrastructure decay in South Africa over many years, and unfortunately the same decay crept into the aviation infrastructure. Air Traffic & Navigation Services (ATNS) has withdrawn all airport approaches in the last 24 months because they didn’t maintain them. They had to redesign all those approaches, but as they did that, they expired, so it became like a death spiral. It’s difficult for a scheduled airline when there are no instrument flight procedures and there is weather, you often have to divert aircraft. It was horrible for the industry from a cost and growth perspective. At least, we have at least one approach per airfield. I could go on with airports and the state-run Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) as a monopolist, talk about no water and electricity disruptions at airports, there’s a general decay. This is how we invite guests into this country; I think it’s completely wrong. 

Spaeth: South Africa is a very competitive aviation market, and Airlink doesn’t publish financial figures. Are you profitable? 

Engelbrecht: Before COVID, until 2019, Airlink had an uninterrupted, 18-year profit history. In 2020 and 2021, we survived by the skin of our teeth. But since then, since 2022, we’ve been constantly profitable again, we are back to pre-COVID levels. 

Spaeth: Airlink is often perceived in South Africa as a high-fare airline. Why is that? 

Engelbrecht: We benchmark our fares in hard currency per kilometre, and our fares are probably at just 40% of the global benchmark. In my view this country is probably one of the cheapest places to fly in the world, while your cost as an airline is pretty much Dollar-based and benchmarked to the global industry. But your fares are at 40% of the average. For us to be sustainable, you have to price at a level where you cover your cost and be sustainable into the future, otherwise you can’t grow. If our philosophy would be different, we would also be in the graveyard now, like many of our former competitors. We are a full-service network carrier, what you see is what you pay, and will be for the foreseeable future. 

Spaeth: Can you describe the current competitive environment on the South African market? 

Engelbrecht: The low-cost carrier FlySafair is dominant, they account for about 68%of the total capacity and they continue to add capacity, as does South African Airways (SAA). We were at about 17-19% of capacity and are now down to 14% of the domestic market. Airlink hasn’t added any domestic capacity for the last two years. We shifted capacity to regional markets, and we are not fascinated by market share, that’s not how we measure our success. I believe it’s a chimera, a very jealous girlfriend. With more E2 coming in, we’ll increase our presence in the domestic market, but very much focused on feeding and de-feeding our network and that of our many partners. SAA, Lift and Cem Air participate in the balance of the domestic market, in that sequence. But while being the number two airline in capacity domestically, we are clearly the leader in intra-African flights. In the wider region to and from South Africa we offer about 62% of the capacity relative to our South African peers, that’s where our focus is for at least the next two years.  

Spaeth: Can you give some examples of upcoming routes? 

Engelbrecht: We have been overwhelmed for example by demand for our new flights from Johannesburg to Zanzibar and added frequencies in the peak season. We have also applied for routes from Cape Town to Zanzibar and Mauritius. Johannesburg will always remain our main base, but it’s congested, they struggle to manage the airspace.  

It’s natural to look for different havens, and Cape Town comes up first. There are other markets out of Cape Town that we are considering. The E2 is basically the enabler for us because of range and cost per seat. While the first E2 delivery routed non-stop from Recife in Brazil to Cape Town, the third one even managed to fly in one stretch from there straight into its new base in Johannesburg. They landed there with two tons of fuel still on board, quite a performance. 

Spaeth: Qatar Airways is a 25% shareholder in Airlink now, what impact does that make and what’s the benefit for you? 

Engelbrecht: The biggest advantage for us is the brand endorsement. One of the major carriers, the best airline in the world having done proper due diligence of Airlink, financially, legally, operationally and starting to invest in the company carries a lot of weight from a branding perspective. We don’t have access to their balance sheet, but when you walk into a room to negotiate, there is a shadow of Qatar Airways over you. The lessors or the aircraft manufacturers know, even as they are not in the room, they are in the room. There is a lot of benefit to that.  

We also have two non-executive directors from Qatar on the board, and obviously they bring their institutional knowledge, which is always very useful. There is a commercial alignment between us and Qatar Airways, we feed and de-feed their flights into South Africa. Their access to resources is just so much bigger than ours. But they wouldn’t procure aircraft for us, we would also guard against that. It is important for Airlink to remain completely independent. The post Airlink CEO: South Africa is ‘one of the cheapest places to fly’  appeared first on AeroTime.

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