Nov 03, 2016: Durban’s King Shaka International Airport welcomed the inaugural flight of Air Namibia on October 30. The airline is now flying a four times weekly Windhoek-Gaborone-Durban schedule, with flights on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The airline will be servicing this route with an Embraer ERJ 135 Jet, which can take up to 37 passengers.

Air Namibia has fifth freedom traffic rights in Gaborone. This means that Durban passengers can travel to both Gaborone and Windhoek. Durban's King Shaka International Airport continues to surpass both passanger and cargo volume projections, having experienced a 14 per cent passenger growth from August 2015 to August 2016, as well as an impressive 17 per cent growth in cargo over the same period.

The introduction of the new flights, linking Durban to Windhoek and Gaborone, serves to further strengthen King Shaka International Airport’s regional network, improving air connectivity amongst these three cities and their respective onward destinations, ensuring that Durban passengers will benefit from cost and time savings, making it convenient to reach these and other connecting destinations.

At the official launch event for the two new routes, the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, MrSihleZikalala, welcomed the inaugural Air Namibia flight saying, “The increase in air services to a destination facilitates growth in other sectors of the economy by supporting increased trade, attracting new businesses to the region, encouraging investment and enhancing productivity; the new route will certainly contribute positively to KwaZulu-Natal’s economic development.”

Mr Hamish Erskine, CEO Dube TradePort, further noted, “The new route will stimulate tourism and business travel amongst KwaZulu-Natal, Botswana and Namibia, bolstering the province's integrated regional network, which already includes direct flights to Ethiopia, Mozambique, Mauritius, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This is in addition to stimulating employment in our own aviation industry, as there are a host of jobs created that are critical to the operations of an airline, from stewards who handle passengers and their baggage and other technical personnel who operate, service, and maintain aircrafts.”

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