The Namibian government has ruled out any immediate plans to establish a new national airline following the 2021 liquidation of Air Namibia.
Minister of Works and Transport John Mutorwa, however, offered a glimmer of hope for a future Namibian-flag carrier, suggesting a smaller, regional airline could take wing someday.
“I appreciate that the Minister of Finance [Iipumbu Shiimi] was regularly briefing and explaining to the Cabinet on the status of Air Namibia, how and what led to its liquidation. To the best of my recollection, there is no concrete decision taken so far on whether a new airline will be relaunched. It is only a wish that, maybe Namibia will be in a position to consider launching a smaller regional airline, maybe,” Mutorwa said.
Namibia has been without a national airline since Air Namibia was liquidated in 2021 following a Cabinet decision.
The aviation entity was submerged into multibillion-dollar debt, of which the government could not manage to provide a financial injection.
In 2021, Shiimi said Air Namibia had significant debts of about N$3 billion and government-guaranteed debt of N$2.58 billion, a situation that the government was unable to sustain due to economic challenges and the effects of Covid-19.
“It should be noted that several business plans to turn around Air Namibia were developed at different times, but unfortunately such plans didn’t yield the desired outcome. The latest business plan indicated that for Air Namibia to be saved, a substantial amount of over N$4 billion should be made available. Given the prevailing economic conditions, investing such a significant amount of money into a loss-making entity will come at the expense of other priorities such as health, housing, education, agriculture, etc,” Shiimi said at the time.
Various other options to save the airline were also explored including entering into collaboration with other airlines currently operating in and out of Namibia.
The other option was a collaboration with airlines that are planning to enter, to determine if they would be interested in a strategic partnership including South Africa Airway (SAA), Ethiopian Airlines, TAAG, Lufthansa, KLM, Onur Air, British Airways, Turkish Airlines, Emirates and Qatar, plans which did, however, yield positive results.
This comes as the governing Swapo Party resolved in 2022 to revive Air Namibia to provide regional connectivity to destinations such as Johannesburg and Cape Town (South Africa), Lusaka (Zambia), Harare (Zimbabwe), Gaborone (Botswana), Luanda (Angola), Maputo (Mozambique), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Nairobi (Kenya).
FlyNamibia is currently the country’s sole domestic and regional airline.
FlyNamibia currently operates domestic routes from Eros Airport in Windhoek to Ondangwa, Katima Mulilo, Lüderitz, and Oranjemund, as well as regional routes between Hosea Kutako International Airport and Cape Town International, as well as Walvis Bay International Airport and Cape Town International.
