fastjet shares rise on milestone passenger numbers

fastjet shares surged Monday as the low-cost airline announced it carried its 100,000th passenger and launched a new credit and debit card payment service.

The milestone comes almost four months since the African airline started flights from Dar es Salaam.

The budget carrier partnered with credit card Wirecard to facilitate bookings using Visa and MasterCard, to allow greater access for consumers and travel agents across the globe.

"Whilst credit and debit cards usage is not large in East Africa (less than 10% of the population in East Africa have credit or debit cards), we have been inundated with requests from outside Africa for people looking to purchase seats on the fastjet website, and I am delighted to say that having partnered with Wirecard we are now in the position to be able to facilitate these bookings," said Chief Commercial Officer Richard Bodin.

"This coupled with our hugely popular mobile money payment facility really means that our customer base has the full suite of payment processes available to them."

RD