Overview - Mango

South African LCC, Mango, launched domestic operations on 15 Nov-06. Wholly owned by South African Airways (SAA), Mango is independently managed and operated at arm's length from SAA in compliance with competition laws.

Part of the reason Mango launched was to bring affordable flights to the country's largely untapped low-income population that, until now, has relied heavily on bus and rail travel, while reclaiming lost market share from privately-owned, new-entrant LCCs - 1time and kulula.com, which is 18% owned by British Airways.

Mango’s fleet consists of four B737 800s leased from SAA, which achieve daily utilisation rates of up to 12 hours, and are configured with a high-density, 186-seat layout. The carrier is looking to lease up to six additional B737-800s over the next few years. Mango CEO, Nico Bezuidenhout, has said “we may grow to ten aircraft in five years - it all depends on how well we’re received by the market.”

If initial public interest was anything to go by, the fleet may indeed grow rapidly over the coming years. During the first ten minutes after booking opened on the Mango website, 15,000 availability queries were made and by mid-morning the following day, 11,000 confirmed reservations had been made at Mango's call-centre, which opened at 6.00am.

Bezuidenhout has claimed that he expects Mango to grow the domestic travel market by 10% to 15% a year, equating to 250,000 extra passengers up to and following the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted in South Africa.

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