Entrepreneur Gidon Novick puts people at the centre of innovation. He is led by his curiosity into how things can be done in a different, better way. By founding airlines like Kulula and Lift, he became the game-changer of the South African aviation industry.
“Marty! Marty! Where has that dog gone now?” A secretary walks around the 2nd floor office space of Roamwork, a flexible co-working space on Harrington Street in Cape Town. Marty travels through the office under the radar. Sniffing from desk to reception to coffee station, mostly unnoticed. He wags his tail in another direction as two bare feet cross the reception lounge.
“Which Gidon?” asks the receptionist. “I think he might be on the 4th floor.” Turns out he is on the 2nd floor. Like his beloved Marty, this game-changer of the South African aviation industry, moves under the radar.
He sits down, leans back, and rests his bulging arm on the back of the seat next to him. Gidon Novick has arrived.
The idea of hope
“There were lots of factors that counted in our favour to start an airline, apart from the fact that no one was flying,” says Gidon Novick, co-founder of the airline, Lift, which was founded in 2020, during lockdown. Its first flight took off in December of that year.
“I think there’s also the ability to see opportunity in difficult circumstances,” he says, the hint of a boyish smile curling around the corners of his mouth.
“People often believe in extremes. When things are going well, they think nothing can go wrong. When things are bad, they assume everything is doomed.” Novick, however, has a profound sense for the silver lining.
During Covid, Comair entered business rescue, while some other airlines experienced retrenchments and had to cut routes.
“During Covid, there were a number of things that actually made it an interesting time to start an airline,” Novick says. Despite the travel bans, strict regulations, masks, restrictions on food service, and constant uncertainty, Novick saw opportunity.
Due to the pandemic, the cost of entry into the airline market was actually unusually low, he says. Aircraft leasing rates dropped dramatically, and a large pool of highly experienced pilots, cabin crew, and support staff was made available practically overnight, due to layoffs at other airlines. Covid even helped squeeze already struggling competitors to the margins of the market.
“So although the environment looked terrible on the surface, there were many underlying factors that actually created an opportunity,” says Novick.
Novick, through Lift, took full advantage of this opportunity. The airline, for example, was able to hire some SAA-trained staff with years of experience. It also targeted the budget airline market by becoming “SA’s most flexible airline”. In December 2020, Lift Airlines commenced operations with flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town, connecting the two important cities in Novick’s life story.
“I was just a kid growing up around aeroplanes,” says Novick, who was born in Johannesburg but currently resides in Cape Town.
His fascination with flight was sparked by spending school holidays at Rand Airport in Johannesburg where his father, Dave Novick, worked for Comair. Gidon Novick himself would later, from 2006 to 2011, serve as CEO of the same company.
While he studied finance and spent years working as an accountant, Novick always found himself gravitating back to aviation.
Building a better one
Novick recalls the now famous words that became the cornerstone for Boeing, one of aviation’s most legendary ventures: “I think we can build a better one…”
“I think a lot of people are trained to see the world simply as it is,” says Novick. “But what interests me is the difference between the way things are, and the way they could be. There’s often a very big difference between the two.”
Gidon Novick thrives on reinventing systems. His legacy is defined by challenging airline models, launching disruptive businesses, and finding the opportunity in crises.
“Curiosity is what drives the process of building things. It’s constantly asking: Could this be done differently? Could this be done better?” he says.
He sees you
The golden thread of everything he has pulled off is reimagining the flying experience through the eyes of people instead of logistical pragmatism.
“From a business point of view, what interests me is understanding what people are afraid of and what creates anxiety or uncertainty for them,” says Novick. This outlook allowed Novick to think differently about innovating for the sake of the customer and not the business. In the airline’s “Five Years of Lift” advertising campaign in December 2025, for example, Lift claimed that their mission was simple: “Make flying feel better. Make the experience feel human.”
Another Novick brainchild, the SLOW Lounge concept, launched during Novick’s time at Comair, was made to “create a space that people want to be in”, he says.
Before, airport lounges were purely functional spaces, with maybe a coffee machine if you were lucky, says Novick. Now the lounges report people even showing up early for their flights.
Loving the rush
“It’s my birthday on Wednesday,” says Lindie, his wife. “He does this a lot. He will tell me, ‘Okay, pack a bag. We’re going away. I’m not telling you where we’re going. We’re flying tomorrow.’”
Before leaving too much to the imagination, she admits that in their family of 6, “5 of us have terrible ADHD”.
Novick loves the rush of new and exciting things, he says. He thrives on starting a company and giving it his all in the building stage. It comes as no surprise then that Novick is no longer at Lift, and has since shifted his energy to new ventures, including SA Harvest, a food rescue non-profit organisation, and Circle Senior Living, a luxury retirement residence.
“There are other people who are much better suited to running established organisations. That kind of work is more predictable. Processes are defined, the structure is clear, and you follow a routine. That’s not really where my strengths lie,” he says.
An adrenaline junkie at heart, Novick rather indulges in the stages that involve innovation, collaboration, and “making a lot of mistakes while figuring things out”.
At 56, he shows no signs of slowing down. A big tan man, he clearly found an outlet for his restlessness in becoming Capetonian 11 years ago – running, swimming, and doing yoga by the beach. He has also now become obsessed with AI.
“Marty! Has anyone seen Marty?” he calls out over the office. “Here he is, he was lonely,” the secretary leads the dog into the boardroom. Marty curls up by Novick’s bare feet.
“Please send it to me after you publish. I would love to send it to my mom,” says the man who quietly rebuilt the way you fly.
