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| Air Namibia |
Air Namibia General Manager Commercial Services Xavier Masule said in Lusaka yesterday that the airline had noticed increased traffic between Zambia and Namibia, a move that has prompted them to make Lusaka a daily destination from Windhoek.
He said a market survey had revealed that a lot of tourists to Namibia from especially Europe and East Africa still made the trip to Zambia and because of that, his airline would make flying to Livingstone a four- times - a- week event.
"By October this year, we are dedicating a four- times- a- week flight straight into Livingstone.
"A huge number of tourists we get from Europe still end up in Zambia but we want to boost that by making Livingstone our second destination city into Zambia," he said.
This comes just a week after Zambia Tourism Board announced that it was talking to airlines in the region so that they could channel some of their flights direct to Livingstone, with Air Namibia mentioned.
Mr Masule was in the country together with a high - powered Air Namibia delegation to meet Zambian partners in the travel industry and seeing ways of improving their operations in the country.
After meeting travelling agencies where they explained their growth plans and listened to complaints from the Zambian agencies, the officials from the Namibian delegation also met Government officials at the Ministry of Communications.
Mr Masule said Air Namibia was currently flying to Victoria Falls town in Zimbabwe, which is across the Zambezi River from Livingstone and that the airline wanted to make Zambia just another good destination.
He said the flights would be split because Livingstone was increasingly becoming a popular destination for the tourists the airline was bringing in who were later distributed across the region.
He added that the Zambian aviation sector was showing a lot of promise, adding that, even after increasing flights to Lusaka from one to four every day, Air Namibia was still failing to meet the demand of traffic between the two countries.
"So beginning of next month (March), we shall be bringing one big plane on Tuesdays which will not just have more passenger capacity but also boost the capacity of cargo tonnage," he said.
The limited amount of cargo that was handled by the Embraer planes with a sitting capacity of 27 passengers and maximum cargo capacity of 300 kilogrammes, was one of the complaints presented to the Air Namibia top brass by the travel agencies .