Windhoek - Namibia's national carrier Air Namibia is seeking partnerships with Fly Emirates, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines to open routes to the Middle East, it reportedly said on Monday.
“We are engaging Fly Emirates and Qatar Airways to increase access to more international destinations,” said Rene Gsponer, chief operations officer at Air Namibia.
“We entered into a memorandum of understanding with Turkish Airlines and have code-sharing agreements with Kenya Airways and Lufthansa.”
The Nairobi route would be operational from April 2015, the local weekly newspaper The Villager reported on Monday.
Air Namibia has a fleet of two Airbus A330-200 and four Airbus A319-100 for its international routes. Four Embraer ERJ 135
aircraft service local and regional destinations.
Air Namibia operates six flights a week between Frankfurt and Windhoek during low season, and seven flights a week during the high season, from July to November each year.
A year ago, Air Namibia concluded an “airline-to-airline” commercial partnership agreement with Germany's Lufthansa.
It enables traffic exchange at Frankfurt between Lufthansa and Air Namibia with a “one stop” connection to over 63 cities in Europe for passengers - including Germany - on one issued ticket by Air Namibia.
Air Namibia's monopoly over the country's air space will face competition in February, when low cost carrier Flyafrica.com starts operations by offering daily flights between Windhoek and Johannesburg.
Flyafrica also plans to introduce regional flights from Namibia to Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.
Namibia Flyafrica.com is a joint venture between Namibia-based Nomad Aviation and Flyafrica, of Mauritius. - Sapa