The story
Initial domestic services
Fly540 started operations between Nairobi and Mombasa on November 24, 2006. The airline's name refers to its price of KSh5,540 per adult return fare between the above-mentioned cities.
Lonrho Africa was a major investor in the company, paying US $1.5 million for a 49% stake.
Passenger numbers rose by 93% to 171,160 in the year ending 30 September 2008, compared to 88,571 in 2007. At the same time, the load factor amounted to 63%, down from 65.8% in 2007.
Pan-African ambitions
The original scheduled flights included freight and passenger services between Nairobi and Mombasa, while Kisumu became a destination in January 2007. Daily flights on the Nairobi-Malindi-Lamu route were added to Fly540's domestic services in February 2007.
International operations commenced in October 2007 with flights to Juba in South Sudan and Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; service to Entebbe in Uganda began in February 2008. Additionally, Fly540 Tanzania launched direct flights between Dar es Salaam and Mwanza, on the western shores of Lake Victoria.
Initially the company operated 11 flights a week and it was hoped that in time its Fokker 28 aircraft, which carried 28 people, would be upgraded to a 50-seat CRJ100.
Investment by Fastjet
In June 2012, Fly540 was sold for $85.7 million (Sh7.3 billion) to British investment firm Rubicon Diversified Investments (now Fastjet Plc ), who purchased the airline from Lonrho group. Rubicon said it had chosen to acquire Fly540 as its platform for the launch of a budget airline in Africa, to be modelled on EasyJet, Europe's second largest low-cost carrier.
The first flights were transferred to the new airline, Fastjet, on 29 November 2012. These were two domestic routes in Tanzania; it had been expected that all Fly540 flights would quickly be transferred to Fastjet, in turn, as the various arrangements and permissions required for each route were agreed upon.
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Following the acquisition of Lonrho's 49% interest in Five Forty Aviation Kenya Ltd, and a further 49.98% economic interest in the company approved at a Fastjet General meeting on 29 June 2012, it became apparent that the vendor did not consider the additional acquisition had completed. The dispute led to legal claims by both parties over the ownership and other matters. A Memorandum of Understanding was reached on 23 April 2013 where both parties agreed to stop legal proceedings against each other because Fastjet did not believe they had control or significant influence. As of 1 July 2014, a settlement was agreed between Fastjet and Don Smith [CEO] in which Fastjet transferred all shares in Five Forty Aviation Kenya LTD to Don Smith and Fastjet relinquished any further interest in Five Forty Aviation Ltd. The Five Forty brand name is now for sole use of Five Forty Aviation Kenya Ltd.
Suspension
Fly540's operations in Kenya were suspended in November 2022 by the country's Competition Authority following complaints over false advertising, short notice before cancellation of flights, and delayed refunds. The carrier was ordered to refund a batch of tickets sold after the date on which its Air Operators Certificate expired as well as any ticket before that date "where flights were cancelled arbitrarily."
In 2025, a Kenyan court ordered the sale of aircraft leased to Fly540.
From Wikipedia’s article on Fly540, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4