Eswee Vorster believes in setting his young team free “to do their crazy”. Since joining low-cost airline FlySafair in 2015, the CIO has spent the last decade building the team, systems and thinking that underpin the airline’s high-performance digital backbone.
From customer-facing systems to operations and AI, FlySafair CIO Eswee Vorster’s focus is on building with intent and putting people first. “We started with just a few people,” he says. “Now the team is just under 50. We’ve been fortunate to grow with the company from the beginning.”
FlySafair’s launch of its low-cost airline operation in 2014 marked the beginning of a technology journey that would grow alongside the airline’s expansion. And for Eswee, while IT wasn’t his first choice, he touched down at the right time.
“I always say the technology and IT space chose me – I didn’t choose it. I started my career as a business analyst at Vodacom and ultimately fell in love with product development, which eventually led me to FlySafair.”
The IT and innovation team at FlySafair manages systems and processes that span the entire airline operation including check-in counters, flight operations, the mobile app, WhatsApp channel and technical aircraft maintenance systems.
“Everything plugs in somewhere. Our team touches almost everything and it is all critical to the customer experience and how we manage to be on time, which is a key pillar for us as an airline,” he notes.
Authenticity is key
Building teams and supporting individual growth is central to Eswee’s leadership approach. “I love seeing people develop. We hire for fit. If someone is authentic, passionate and has the right attitude, we can teach the rest. We’ve brought in some really sharp young people, given them space and watched them thrive,” he elaborates.
Continuous development is embedded in the team’s planning. Annual sessions focus on team growth, maturity and gap analysis. “We don’t isolate people’s weaknesses. We look at the team’s goals, the tech stack and what we need to grow. Then we plan accordingly.”
Eswee encourages his team to pursue further studies and continuous learning as part of their personal development roadmap. Many new joiners at FlySafair are mid-study and several team members are working towards formal qualifications or certifications.
“The environment supports it. We create space for people to learn and bring new skills back into the team,” he says.
Authenticity remains a key pillar of his leadership. “Being authentic as a leader has been non-negotiable for me. Although I’ve had to slightly adapt my leadership style as my team got bigger, our focus has always been on people and people as an enabler to technology and not the other way around.”
Eswee is also an avid reader and credits authors such as Brené Brown for helping him strengthen his emotional intelligence and authenticity and apply those lessons in his leadership.
A collective effort
With the rapid pace of digitalisation at FlySafair, securing stakeholder buy-in has been critical.
“As a company that originated from a legacy business, driving innovation was initially a challenge. Established ways of working meant a strong change management process was necessary to build something sustainable,” Eswee says.
He explained that the technology function must earn the trust of the business and internal partners by demonstrating long-term value. “I do not believe that digitalisation is owned by the technology and innovation department. It is a collective effort that draws on ideas from across the organisation. Our role in IT is to serve as the delivery stakeholders.”
A critical success factor in building a future-fit technology function with stakeholder buy-in is maintaining agility to ensure fast delivery while upholding robust controls. “Throughout my time at FlySafair, I have focused on maintaining the agile startup mindset that contributed to the airline’s success while investing in scalable enterprise technologies to support future growth,” he says.
Few projects have tested FlySafair’s IT team like its annual birthday sale. Originally conceived as a marketing initiative to celebrate the airline’s birthday by offering mega cheap flight tickets, it has evolved into one of the most technically demanding campaigns in local aviation.
“It’s been an 11-year journey of iteration,” says Eswee. “For the first few years, the system crashed. We underestimated the load.”
A laser focus on automation
In 2025, for the first time in the campaign’s history, the system remained stable. “We worked with our technology partners for exactly a year to get this right and applied all the learnings from the past 10 years. We increased our focus on scalability and I’m happy to report that we didn’t crash once this year,” he adds.
FlySafair recently launched an AI-powered WhatsApp chatbot named Lindi. Initially developed as an internal email assistant, it was repurposed to streamline customer interactions.
“We were quite curious about AI use cases and applications when it first came out but we were also laser-focused on only deploying customer-centric technologies, so we knew that whatever use case we came up with had to be about making our customers’ lives easier,” says Eswee.
Lindi enables passengers to book flights, change names or seats and access key travel information through WhatsApp. “We initially implemented Lindi in our helpdesk email space and transitioned the chatbot to WhatsApp as a way to introduce our customers to AI in a familiar context,” he explains.
Governance has been central to ensuring Lindi remains safe to use. A human consistently verifies that the information it provides is accurate and factual.
FlySafair also has a strong focus on the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) journey which began in 2023. “Our group booking department has seen the most success in leveraging RPA. The engineers in the department worked to streamline the process and have successfully brought the group booking process from days to minutes using RPA.”
The initiative has been well received by the business with employees recognising that it is working with them rather than against them.
Maintaining speed without chaos
Innovation is embedded in FlySafair’s DNA and the technology function actively promotes it. “Innovators have great stature in the organisation. Our team is largely composed of young people who often have wild ideas and I believe in setting them free to do their crazy,” Eswee says jokingly.
As the organisation has matured, the IT and innovation team, led by Eswee, has introduced structures to maintain speed without chaos, while preserving a culture where developers and analysts see their work brought to life. “I tell my team daily that they’re building an airline and to consider how their work impacts millions of customers daily. This fosters a sense of ownership where each team member owns a piece of what they build.”
In support of continuous innovation, the IT leadership team reviews its ways of working annually to assess what has been effective and adjusts internal processes accordingly. The company actively supports these initiatives.
When he’s not at FlySafair, Eswee enjoys playing golf, visiting the bushveld and spending time around a campfire with his wife, son and two daughters. Whether braaing or just relaxing together, family time is what he values most. “My family helps me keep perspective, which is essential in leading in a fast-paced environment.”
Having recently completed his doctorate in IT, he now collaborates with the University of Pretoria to bridge the gap between academic research and practical application in his spare time.
According to Eswee, his career doesn’t have an endpoint. “I’m not focused on the next role – my goal is to keep building, keep improving and keep adding value to FlySafair. The culture and people here make that a privilege."
