Namibia national carrier, Air Namibia, is positioning itself to be one of Africa’s finest airlines. To achieve this objective, the airline is busy with a reorganization exercise, which includes benchmarking its services against some of the most successful African carriers.
This was disclosed during a visit to the African Airlines Association (AFRAA) headquarters by Theo Namases, MD of the airline.
Air Namibia also believes that carriers on the African continent should recognize that there is a need to cooperate and jointly exploit opportunities applying the “win win” principle.
As part of its strategy, Air Namibia is investing in newer generation aircraft to replace the existing ageing fleet. It is also seeking to forge commercial cooperation arrangements with successful airlines to extend its market coverage and provide customer flexibility and convenience.
Briefing the secretary general of AFRAA on the operations of the airline, Namases said:
“Air Namibia aims to increase its contribution to the socio-economic development of Namibia and of the African continent in general. It is for this reason that we are keen to move our
operations to the next level by learning from the best and benchmarking our services with the finest in the world.”
Namases thanked AFRAA for its support since the Airline enrolled as a member in 2000 and asked the association to continue to assist Air Namibia.
She requested AFRAA to establish a research unit that will gather and analyse information pertaining to the industry on the continent for use by airlines in making informed decisions.
Dr Elijah Chingosho, secretary general of AFRAA, used Air Namibia’s visit as an opportunity to brief the team on some of the practical activities AFRAA would be undertaking under the direction and leadership of its executive committee and his management to add value to member airlines.
Dr Chingosho said his focus this year was to “realign AFRAA’s activities to the current imperatives of African airlines.”
He assured Air Namibia that soon, AFRAA, with the approval of the executive committee, will roll out a number of specific projects designed to offer tangible benefits to airlines.
The secretary general also noted that network rationalisation, joint fuel purchase, commercial cooperation and training will be vigorously pursued by AFRAA.
In addition, “AFRAA will tackle the issues of high taxes and charges by service providers and
monopoly handling companies at some African airports with the view to addressing them,” he said.
He added that AFRAA will continue to support Air Namibia whenever so required.
He further called for more active participation of the airline in AFRAA’s activities including attendance by its CEO at the annual general assembly meeting, to be held in Marrakech, Morocco from 20 to 22 November 2011.
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