In the South African aviation industry, where airlines and CEOs come and go, Rodger Foster, CEO of Airlink, stands out. After 33 years at the helm of the airline he co-founded with Barrie Webb, Foster is handing over the controls at the end of March.

Foster will remain a shareholder and non-executive director. Current CFO de Villiers Engelbrecht will step into the CEO role on April 1. Engelbrecht has a long tenure of over 20 years at the airline.

Foster said Engelbrecht, who has knowledge of all aspects of the business, ranging from IT to human resources and financials, is an “easy shoo in” for the post and requires no specific handover. “He’ll just get the keys to the door.”

From warehouses to aviation

Before launching Airlink in 1992, Foster was in the industrial contracting business, building warehouses alongside his partner Webb. A commercially licensed pilot with a degree in architecture, Foster would fly to less accessible places like Upington to do his work, which opened up “new horizons” for the business.

“Because we were using aviation to access opportunities and sites, the aviation business grew in parallel to the contracting business and eventually it became an opportunity in the form of taking over the old Link Airways in 1992,” he said.

Highs and lows

Foster said the highlight of his career is that Airlink remains a steadfast, economically viable company.

“The biggest high is to find Airlink in its current position. A business that has survived all of the potholes in the road without having any wheels fall off or break.”

He said it’s a business that supports 2 700 families directly and thousands more downstream. It built a wide network in South Africa and intra-regionally, operating 83 000 flights per year with a fleet of 67 planes and “a robust balance sheet”.

The low point came when South African Airways went into business rescue in December 2019, taking with it millions owed to Airlink, leaving it “high and dry”, said Foster. A few months later, the pandemic shut down the aviation industry. “It wasn’t a pothole. The two together became a crater and we managed to survive that.”

ATNS

Asked which industry challenge he would have addressed if it was in his power, Foster does not hesitate: the Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) flight procedures “debacle”.

“It’s a debacle that no individual within ATNS actually understands. If they did understand it, they would have pre-empted it and made sure they didn’t plunge the industry into the dilemma and conundrum we now find ourselves in.”

The issue has resulted in widespread flight delays and cancellations at airports around the country.

And Foster believes it’s about to get worse with the expiration of the Alternative Means of Compliance (AMOC) in April. “Once they expire, I think the situation is going to get a whole lot worse unless there is another plan to put another AMOC in place,” he said.

Vision for the airline

Foster said Airlink has built a reputation as an “adventurous organisation”, which he’d like to see continue.

“We’ve developed a rich, dense network, which is part of the robustness of the business and I’d like to see that network expand and the richness continue developing.

“I’d like to see it continue adventuring but on the basis of business informatics, driven by facts and figures as opposed to emotion, and in a way that is going to be sustainable and viable,” he said.