Skip to footer

South African businesswoman becomes first black woman to launch an airline

The airline, Fly Blue Crane, started flying from Johannesburg in September.

|
Courtesy of Fly Blue Crane
Siza Mzimela, middle, stands with Fly Blue Crane staff.
  • By Lonnie Shekhtman Staff

Sizakele Petunia Mzimela, a South African businesswoman who goes by Siza Mzimela, recently became the first black woman to launch her own airline, called Fly Blue Crane.

The airline started flying in September from O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg to destinations in South Africa, but plans to expand routes to Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ms. Mzimela, who was previously chief executive at South African Airways (SAA) – the first woman to hold that job – told CNBC Africa recently that her objective with Fly Blue was to reintroduce “romanticism” to flying, which is why her airline doesn’t distinguish between economy and business classes.

“It’s all leather seats and everyone gets treated specially,” 49-year-old Mzimela told CNBC Africa last month.

Her vision, she said, is to use the airline to open up routes that will help grow the economies of more remote towns in Africa.

“Even when I was at SAA, people used to call me ‘mama Africa’ because I was so passionate about opening up the continent,” Mzimela said.

Her leadership trajectory is unusual for women and for blacks in South Africa and beyond. A report this year by accounting consulting firm Grant Thornton International found that 27 percent of top decision-making roles in South African businesses were filled by women, a statistic that hasn’t changed in a decade. Globally, reports Grant Thornton, 22 percent of senior roles are held by women, also a stagnant statistic over the past decade.

For black executives of any gender in the country, the picture is even more bleak. A 2015 report from South African executive recruiting firm Jack Hammer found that there are four CEOs leading the country’s top 40 companies, which is a decline from three years ago, when there were six.

In the US, according to CNN Money, there are two black CEOs leading the top 30 companies, and five heading the top 500 companies.

For Mzimela, it’s been a challenging road to the top of a male-dominated industry.

“I don’t know how many times I’ve walked into meetings and people just assumed I was going to be the one taking notes,” she told CNBC.

Her advice to other women leaders who are breaking down gender boundaries in any industry: “Forget about the fact that you’re going to be the first,” said Mzimela. “ A whole lot of people get caught up in that. It holds people back.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to South African businesswoman becomes first black woman to launch an airline
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2015/1202/South-African-businesswoman-becomes-first-black-woman-to-launch-an-airline
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe