Airlink plays the network game with no interest in the low-cost fight

“There’s no beef with Safair,” Airlink CEO de Villiers Engelbrecht says as he laughs off Daily Maverick questions about the supposed bunfight between the two domestic airlines. “We just wanted clarity on what the rules are around ownership.”

He is, of course, referring to the incident in January this year when FlySafair faced grounding following Airlink and Lift reporting them to the Air Services Licensing Council, alleging non-compliance with ownership rules.

Read more: Airlines fight threatens widespread grounding

The regulatory authorities – International Air Services Council for international licences and Air Services Licensing Council for domestic — ruled that 75% of airline shares must be owned by “natural persons” resident in South Africa, excluding trusts and companies. This unexpected interpretation threatened the operations of several carriers, including Airlink itself, which is partly owned by Qatar Airways and a B-BBEE trust, potentially failing the “natural person” requirement.

Lift’s parent company, Global Airways, blinked first, proposing FlySafair be given 30 days to correct its shareholding. In response, FlySafair secured an injunction to prevent immediate grounding, while maintaining its stance that its trustees are South African residents.

Not interest in low-cost fight

Most importantly, Engelbrecht says he is not interested in the low-cost fight, he frames Airlink as a network carrier and makes business decisions to support that paradigm.

“We don't pretend to be a low-cost carrier. We don’t run a point-to-point business,” he says. “We’re a network carrier. Our value is in the best connections, the best partnerships, and a schedule that caters to partners.”

That positioning explains why Airlink has pulled off the rare trick of operating profitably in a domestic market that chews through airlines like a woodchipper. Narrow-body competitors keep their seat costs low by “cramming 180 seats into 150-seat airframes”, he says. The economics work if you’re chasing volume. But Airlink is chasing utility.

Engelbrecht’s answer? Lower their seat cost, but without becoming a flying cattle truck (no shade, some of us like the Golden Arrow of the sky-style seat cramming).

“We concluded that if we remain as we are, we’re going to basically just fade away. The narrow-body operators will chase us out of every market… So we had to lower our seat cost.”

That led to the biggest fleet decision in Airlink’s 33-year history: the shift to Embraer’s next-generation E195-E2 aircraft. The first three were inducted in October 2025, with service commencement planned for 15 December on the high-density Johannesburg to Cape Town route.

“The E2 brings us within an acceptable percentage of the seat cost of the low-cost carriers,” he says. At roughly 27-28% better fuel burn per seat, the E2 gives Airlink cost relief and preserves its premium cabin experience.

“Unashamedly, if you’ve ever flown on Airlink, you know it’s two by two. You don’t have a middle seat. Your seat pitch is far better than anything else in our market.”

Changing aircraft type entirely, like to Airbus or Boeing, was never on the cards.

“Too traumatic,” Engelbrecht says. All of Airlink’s training, maintenance, spares and supplier relationships are built on Embraer.

“We’d basically be reapplying for an Air Operator Certificate. It affects operations, maintenance, crew… everything.”

Playing the network game

Airlink’s real competitive weapon isn’t seat cost, it’s its network. The Qatar Airways stake, finalised last year, supercharged the strategy.

The Qatari flag carrier now owns 25% of Airlink, a deal Engelbrecht says was less about cash and more about credibility.

“The biggest gain was the brand endorsement. Qatar is the best airline in the world. For them to put their money and brand behind us, that’s massive.”

The partnership is classic Airlink: keep control, maximise connectivity.

Read more: After the Bell: Air Traffic and Navigation Services — on the runway to nowhere

The airline now aligns schedules, loyalty programmes and day-of-operations tech with Qatar, but “we’re independently managed”, Engelbrecht stresses. He is also quick to point out that Airlink hasn’t relied on Qatar’s balance sheet for the new fleet; all commitments sit on Airlink’s own.

Inside the airline, Engelbrecht is building a data-first culture. The network carrier has quietly spun up its own internal AI projects — not customer-facing yet — designed to learn the conditions of carriage and improve internal decision making.

“We’re playing with AI,” he says, keeping his cards close. “But we also base all our decisions on data. We track customer preferences and have been doing that for a long time.”

It’s a rare glimpse into a private airline that treats innovation as a necessity rather than a press-release headline.

Heavy-handed government, hollow institutions

But for all the things Airlink can control, South Africa’s creaking aviation infrastructure run by Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) and ATNS remains the CEO’s biggest concern.

Outside of safety, Engelbrecht says, Acsa and ATNS sit “at the top of our risk register”.

ATNS’ failures are well documented, but Engelbrecht spells out the operational carnage: Airlink runs roughly 240 flights per day, many into secondary airports where ATNS problems are acute.

Read more: Crucial Air Traffic and Navigation Services faces payroll and skills crisis

“These issues create chaos in our business,” he says. “Our on-time performance dropped from 95% to 85%. Customers blame Airlink, not ATNS.”

The direct fuel cost of diversions, holding and taxi delays is R9-million per month. That excludes crew time, aircraft utilisation and maintenance disruptions.

Engelbrecht describes ATNS management as trying, but structurally incapable of quick improvement.

“There’s a long road ahead.”

Deeper concern

Acsa, by comparison, doesn’t even seem to be on the road.

He cites non-functioning escalators, travelators and airbridges at OR Tambo, along with a general decline in visible maintenance. But the deeper concern is what he calls the “monopolisation of services around the airport infrastructure”, which drives inefficiency and cost.

“Acsa is an absolute monopolist,” he says flatly. Unlike ATNS, which at least engages regularly, “Acsa is less responsive at this point.”

Both state-owned companies, Engelbrecht says, show little introspection. The regulatory fight over foreign ownership simply highlighted the inconsistency: “If we have rules, you know, the other airlines have got the same rules.”

In his view, South African aviation suffers not from too much regulation, but from heavy-handed, inconsistently applied regulation, a toxic combination that leaves private operators carrying all the risk.

The network gamble

Airlink is betting its future on a specific reading of the market: that South Africa needs a reliable, premium-leaning network carrier offering global connectivity and regional coverage, not another fare-slashing brawler in the low cost ring.

The E2 jets, the Qatar alignment, the data projects, the cautious seat-cost trimming — these aren’t moves to out-cheap FlySafair or Lift.

“We’re building a business that outlasts cycles,” Engelbrecht says.

If he’s right, Airlink won’t win the low-cost fight because it’s not entering the ring. It is playing a different game on a different board, one where government dysfunction is the real opponent, and the prize is stability in a market that hasn’t seen it in decades. DM