Air Seychelles buckles up for the long-term |24 January 2018

● Paris and Antananarivo flights deemed “unsustainable”

It was an announcement that did not shock most: Air Seychelles will be focusing on its domestic and regional flights and, consequently, reducing its staff in 2018.

This pronouncement was made yesterday during a press conference attended by the interim chief executive of the airline Remco Althuis, the chairman of Air Seychelles Jean Weeling-Lee, and the Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine Maurice Loustau-Lalanne.

In a bid to safeguard its long-term profitability, especially in an increasingly competitive market, Air Seychelles deemed it reasonable to pave out a new strategic transformation plan.

Air Seychelles has predicted that the influx of inbound seat capacity in 2018 from major airlines already operating in Seychelles such as Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Emirates Airlines, Etihad Airways, Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, Austrian Airways, Sri Lankan and Condor, and the arrival of British Airways, Air France and Swiss Edelweiss will create over-capacity on Seychelles-bound services from Europe.

Mr Weeling-Lee said “the aviation industry is fiercely competitive and will become even more so in 2018 as some of the largest carriers begin flying to Seychelles. This transformation plan has been designed to restructure the Air Seychelles business to meet the challenges of the future while continuing to deliver strong results for the economy and people of Seychelles”.

With British Airways flying from London to Seychelles as of March, Air France introducing its own flights from Paris in May and Swiss Edelweiss Air launching direct flights from Zurich in September, Air Seychelles will see a significant downward pressure on airfares. This will in turn affect the loads and forward bookings on Air Seychelles’ current thrice weekly Paris trips.

In order to reduce the financial impact of such competition, Air Seychelles will consolidate its international network by suspending its Paris service effective April 24, 2018 and exit the two leased Airbus A330 aircraft out of the fleet. As part of the network efficiency development strategy, and considering the high dependence on the Paris traffic feed, the airline will at the same time discontinue its Antananarivo, Madagascar service. All guests scheduled to fly on the Paris and Antananarivo routes beyond that date will be re-accommodated on other flights and will be notified of the changes to their itineraries.

Chief executive Althuis said: “The launch of competing air services from Europe to Seychelles will significantly impact Air Seychelles’ flights to and from Paris, which account for approximately 30% of total passenger revenue at the airline, making the route unsustainable in the long-term.”

“After considering all the options, we have taken the decision to withdraw from both Paris and Antananarivo and refocus on our core strengths – our domestic and regional networks. Doing so will enable us to concentrate on more profitable areas of the business, while people in Seychelles will continue to have non-stop access to France and wider Europe through airlines that can operate at more efficient international scale than Air Seychelles,” he added.

While Air Seychelles is removing the Airbus A330 duo off its fleet, it will replace its regional fleet of two Airbus A320 aircraft with the next generation aircraft in 2019, enabling the airline to offer greater levels of comfort while increasing seat capacities and reducing operational costs

Air Seychelles’ inter island flights between Mahé and Praslin as well as scenic flight packages and island charters are set to play an increasingly important role as more international travellers are expected to visit the Seychelles.

These developments, which are logically cost-saving and ensure the sustainability of our local airline, will however not bode well for the airline’s employees due to the fact that the re-structuring will necessitate a reduced workforce in cabin crews and pilots as well as supporting flight and commercial roles.

“We fully understand how challenging these changes will be and we are establishing the optimum way of dealing with the transition. During the coming months, the airline management team will be working closely with the supervisory board, Etihad, and the government of Seychelles to preserve as many jobs as possible and provide assistance to staff. Resizing the workforce to our changing business requirements is a necessary step to create a lean and efficient company,” Mr Althuis stated.

Mr Althuis added that “the key differentiator of Air Seychelles has always been its Creole spirit and exceptional service, and we will explore ways of building on this foundation while developing our offering to better meet the needs of modern travellers, who are increasingly looking for a more personalised travel experience. Our goal will be to restructure our cost base while retaining all the standout qualities that make Air Seychelles so unique”. 

Although the affected personnel will be provided with compensatory packages and help with future employment, it is not the first time that a significant number of Air Seychelles employees are made redundant. More than 400 Air Seychelles employees were made redundant in 2012, more than five years ago, following its partnership agreement with Etihad Airways.

During yesterday’s press conference Mr Weeling-Lee said this in regards to these redundancies: “We are not doing this because we want to but because we need to, in order to ensure a solid and stable company.”

The new strategic plan has been approved by Air Seychelles’ supervisory board and both shareholders, the government of Seychelles and Etihad Airways.