Namib Air Abandons Southern Coastal Town!

[Michael Alexander]

Seems like Air Namibia Management are operating at least a year behind the rest of the world, citing the current global recession as their primary reason for abandoning air services to the remote Southern Coastal towns of Oranjemund and Luderitz.

Towards the end of this month, the daily milk run flight from WHK-Walvis-Luderitz-Oranjemund- CPT will come to an end......

Now we all know that Air Namibia is a broken institution that on a yearly basis  needs 100's of millions of Namibian Taxpayers money to bail them out of the high flying birdsh*t, but without any consultation and forward planning, they just arrive at the conclusion to shut the route down, even though the global recession on the diamond fields has already fared through it's worst days..... Gee! Airline management types, did you ever think about ...wait.....wait....wait for it..... Downscaling your 7 trips a week back to perhaps 2 or three trips a week, kinda like what all the other major companies in the world have been doing (a year ago)....

Perhaps if you were also not robbing the Namibian nation by charging high flying airfares you might have got more folk utilising your services....  For.... &^%$ sake, (pardon my scottish heritage) , but charging almost N$ 3800 for a return flight from Omund to Windhoek.... is frigging Daylight robbery..... If I added an extra grand to that fee, I could fly 9 times the distance , international to London...... do you think we are all living in the 1800's...?

I believe that an alternative private airline is already looking to take over the route......

Last time I checked , this was still a democracy and I am entitled to my rant....

[toonfandangl]

Try Sir Richard  Branson........................................................................

[john wilson]

Does SA Airways still fly into Alex Bay or has that been scrubed also?. So whats the alternative if no flights? car transport only.

[Paul (Pepe) Freemantle]

I agree with you Mike, the same applies here in SA. Local flight's prices are nearly the same price to fly overseas with certain carriers like SAA. I don't think they have learnt the saying small profit, large turnover!!!

[Cheleen Koekemoer(Pretorius)]

Mike, I agree with you that maybe they should down scale the trips to 2 or 3 times a week.  The prices they charge is horrific!!!  Even when I used to work as a travel agent, they charged the poor people more than I think they should have.  I know they are thinking of chartering a plane on request, which I personaly think is sh*t!

@ John321 - SAA has not been flying to Alexbay for a number of years now. 

I think if there are no flights to and from all of these towns the car hire companies should up their fleets as there will be greater demand in car hire.

I really think AirNamibia should thinks twice about what they are doing!!!

[Paul (Pepe) Freemantle]

Surely they should know the average amount of passengers travelling to and from these destinations? If so, they can then determine how many trips to make as Cheleen and Mike have mentioned.