Jonathan Lewis, Managing Director of NAC2000, is building a ground services company in Zambia with international standards and aspirations to grow.
Mark Pilling reports
Jonathan Lewis is distracted as we begin our interview. “I must apologise. Just before we had this call, I was so deep in some other issue that I had to dump it and try and refresh my mind,” he explained.
As any owner of a smaller business (and many owners of larger ones) knows, the role of a leader as the constant trouble-shooter is a big part of the job.
For Lewis, the job of running an African services firm was on his radar, but it came sooner than expected. His father, George Lewis, who led an ultimately failed attempt to put Zambia Airways on a sound footing in the early 1990s, founded NAC2000 Corporation Ltd in 2000.
The younger Lewis was enjoying a successful career at JP Morgan & Chase in London after obtaining a science degree from the UK’s Kings College London. But in 2008, his father fell ill.
“We had spent a couple of years talking about how I might take over the business and I’d always expressed interest to work with him,” said Lewis. “However, I just got thrown in at the deep end because he passed on quite suddenly. I spent very little time with him during the transition.”
He found a business that was far removed from the corporate world he inhabited at JP Morgan. “Fifteen years ago, NAC2000 was 10 times smaller. And it had its own struggles and challenges such as 30-year-old equipment, ageing facilities, and a small staff of about 40 people,” explained Lewis.
Undaunted by the challenge of being uprooted from London and returning to his home country, Lewis has built up NAC2000 in the intervening 15 years, expanding the business and establishing the best industry safety, training, and people standards and practices.
NAC2000 arrives
NAC2000 is based at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport, which serves Zambian capital Lusaka.
The company was born of its predecessor National Air Charters, which itself was an air cargo subsidiary of flag carrier Zambia Airways. It moved away from air cargo operations to concentrate on ground handling and was sold into private hands as Zambia Airways was liquidated, to a team led by George Lewis, to create NAC2000.
“Today we operate at the four main international airports in Zambia [Lusaka, Livingstone, Ndola and Mfuwe],” explained Lewis, in addition to the busy Solwezi Airport, which serves the local mining city in the north-western province of the country. “We also operate at some of the other domestic aerodromes, mostly on request,” he added.
“From a ground services perspective we are strong in cargo ramp handling and warehousing,” said Lewis. “That is for scheduled aircraft and non-scheduled ad hoc operations. We are the market leader in Zambia for ad hoc operations.”
NAC2000 provides its services either direct to airlines or in a subcontract from the Zambia Airports Corporation Limited (ZACL). It provides cargo handling to most of the international carriers operating to Lusaka, such as Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines and Qatar Airways. The exceptions are Emirates, South African carrier Airlink, Turkish Airlines and Zambian cargo operator Stabo Air.
“In terms of our general sales agent cargo services we have relationships with pretty much every single airline apart from Airlink, who we would very much like to work with,” said Lewis.
“We have several different revenue streams. We’re in ground services, in warehouse services and in cargo sales,” noted Lewis. “Then we do customs clearing and freight forwarding. We also have non-aviation related operations at the main land borders to Zambia. This country is landlocked with eight neighbours so there is lots of surface transport coming through.”
At Lusaka, NAC2000 competes with another independent handler in addition to the airport authority, which provides most passenger handling at the airport. From the beginning of his tenure, Lewis’s mantra has been to work with the airport to provide services that benefit all parties.
“I took a strategy to complement and not compete with the airport authority as we were growing,” he explained. “They had no cargo capacity, so it made more sense to provide that service and let them get on with the passengers. But now we’re at a stage where we do want to go into the passenger side.”
However, in such a small market finding the right timing for such a move is critical – otherwise the disruption is too great. “Our market is tiny. Across all four airports when it comes to scheduled operations we do about 70 turnarounds a week,” he said. “The big handlers in the world’s major airports can do that in an hour.”
Lewis is treading carefully but seeking to respond to customer requests for a different type of service. “I would describe our relationship [with Zambia Airports] as a symbiotic, but also a delicate one. They are my biggest customer. But they are also my biggest competitor.
“It is something that needs to be managed or transitioned over time,” said Lewis. “Whether it is NAC2000 or any other player in the market, I think everything is about trying to reach the internationally accepted structure and standards.”
Zambia is making good strides in developing its aviation policies and structures, bringing in industry-accepted standards in terms of the role of airports, airlines, handlers and regulators, believes Lewis.
“There is a mind shift going on. We have good policy and very good political will and ambitions for aviation and the country,” he noted.
Development plans
NAC2000 has grown steadily to reach 150 employees today and is looking to the next phase of its development. “We have a lot of aspirations. We would like to be bigger, better and stronger in Zambia, and see if we can grow into the region and further beyond,” said Lewis. “We don’t want to be just a small corner shop; I have the ambition to grow into something bigger and financially more stable.”
Lewis has held preliminary discussions with service providers in neighbouring countries about potentially teaming up. The aim is to expand in a sensible and profitable manner that is as risk free as possible while ensuring NAC2000’s standards are maintained.
The development of the business over the past 15 years has been about reinvesting. “That is the thing that has helped us to grow and to build capacity and capability. I believe there is a big difference between the two. Capacity is about infrastructure and things like equipment and buildings. Capability is all about people, training and expertise.”
For example, Lewis is proud that NAC2000 is going through the process for its fifth IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations (ISAGO) standard and was the first to achieve and maintain it in Zambia.
“We invest in our people to meet ISAGO requirements,” he said. “There is training for every individual that works in the organisation. We are putting our money where our mouth is.
“For me, ISAGO is like the stamp of approval. It wasn’t on my radar when I started here 15 years ago, but it has brought us a certain mindset and work ethic.”
The rigour of business improvement processes such as Kaizen was implemented at NAC2000 prior to its ISAGO audit and assisted in the latter’s introduction. Business analysis became part of Lewis’s skillset during his time at JP Morgan.
“Those skills were indoctrinated into me in the UK and I’ve brought them here, helping to show my fellow Zambians that it is possible to be as good if not better than anyone, anywhere in the world,” said Lewis.
On the topic of sustainability, Lewis looks for practical solutions that can make a difference for his company, but there are barriers. For instance: “The other day I was looking to procure a piece of ground transport equipment,” he explained. “It was US$300,000 for the diesel model and $500,000 for the electric one. Sorry, but in our market, almost double the price is not realistic.”
Cargo market
As NAC2000 searches for ever higher standards the market it serves has struggled. In fact, Zambia’s cargo exports have been so far down that “last year for the first time in 15 years we turned our cold room off for about six weeks for exports,” said Lewis.
Zambia was hugely affected by the pandemic. The country’s fragmented farming market for perishable products suffered in competition with countries that could produce and export their food more cheaply. Lusaka as a hub found it tough against rivals like Nairobi and Addis Ababa.
“During Covid as demand for the product went down, the freight price went up, and that basically killed off the exporting farmers. This has been bad for the economy and bad for business,” said Lewis.
The local farming market is slowly getting back on its feet; however, the recovery is going to take time, he added.
The drag on the air cargo market is one of the reasons Lewis is looking to add passenger handling and move outside Zambia as he seeks to add revenue streams and diversify the business.
Constructing a business that adheres to globally recognised practices is key for Lewis to make this happen.
“There is a temptation in the logistics chain when something goes wrong to blame ‘those Africans’,” he said. “We have proved that isn’t the case. Once you reach high standards there is confidence and belief in your proper place in a system – that’s where we operate for our customers and for ourselves.
“I strongly believe in one of Nelson Mandela’s sayings that no one believes something’s possible until it’s done,” Lewis went on. “I feel passionate about the business that I’ve worked in for the last 15 years. We have been able to prove that we can do things to international standards. That, for me, is the biggest win of my time yet.”
