A phone call from budget airline pioneer Stelios Haji-Ioannou, a little internet research and fewer than three years later, Fastjet has targeted €360 million in annual revenue from a 24-aircraft business across eastern and southern Africa by 2018.

“Stelios gave me a call. We spent an afternoon Googling Africa, African aviation, African economics,” Fastjet chief executive Ed Winter told Reuters last week.

Now Fastjet is seeking to replicate in Africa the model of Haji-Ioannou’s other airline project, easyJet.

Haji-Ioannou, more commonly known as Stelios, founded the low-cost carrier in 1995 but quit the board in 2010 after a row over strategy. It was there that he met Winter, who was easyJet’s chief operating officer before leaving in 2006.

With just three aircraft, Fastjet is a loss-making minnow listed on London’s junior market with a capitalisation of £31 million (€37.7 million). Underpinning confidence in its expansion plans, however, is the success of its Tanzania operations, which Winter expects to become cash-generative in the near future, having its maiden flight in 2012.

Stelios gave me a call. We spent an afternoon Googling Africa, African aviation, African economics

“We’ve actually managed to prove the low-cost model works in Africa,” said Winter, who owns 2.5 per cent of the company.

“We’ve managed to stimulate the market, we’ve pushed the yield up to where it needs to be and the one thing we now need to do is utilise our aircraft a little bit harder.”

Doing that will involve more routes to Kenya this year and establishing bases in that country as well as South Africa and Zambia.

To fund it, the firm has raised £11 million (€13.4 million) from a placing plus a possible £4 million (€4.9 million) from an open offer.

Stelios’s vehicle easyGroup participated in the placing, investing £1 million (€1.2 million) to become Fastjet’s biggest shareholder with more than 11 per cent.

“Stelios doesn’t very often put money into his businesses... and to switch out of his management fee into shares, it shows a lot of confidence in the business,” said Winter, whose pilot son works for easyJet.

Steering clear of easyJet’s distinctive orange, Fastjet, a name Winters says Stelios came up with, has opted for grey and yellow branding inspired by the African grey parrot.

Mobile phones, payments via SIM cards and social media encouraging new passengers – many of them first-time flyers who previously travelled by bus – have helped Fastjet generate ticket sales in Tanzania.