Air Namibia cancels another three flights

People planning to go from Frankfurt to Windhoek via Air Namibia should be aware of the following cancellations:

SW 285 from Windhoek (WHK) to Frankfurt (FRA) – June 25 & June 27

SW 286 from Frankfurt (FRA) to Windhoek (WHK) – June 26

Reason: The maintenance of the Airbus 340-300 takes longer than expected.

History of the past months:

The strike of its pilots in November 2012 brought a lot of problems to Air Namibia. The Company was not ready to pay more money – so a lot of passengers had to face the problems of cancelled flights. Very often customers had to stay in Windhoek Hotels to wait for another Airline to transport them instead of Air Namibia. At the end the pilots declared the strike off to end the problems for the public flight traffic. Air Namibia “won” the showdown – losing a lot of money.

At the end of 2012 Air Namibia had a big problem to pay its petrol bills to the International Airport of Windhoek. Several times planes on their way to Frankfurt had to land in Luanda (Angola) to get the needed petrol – because they were not allowed to tank in Windhoek anymore.

As Air Namibia is a public enterprise they needed help from the government. In March 2013 it was proclaimed: The government decided to “invest” 1.1 billion N$ (about 110 million US$) for “an Update to the business plan and payment of outstanding debts”.

The frequency of flying to Frankfurt was shortened to four times a week. With the 25^th of June Air Namibia wanted to return to the old schedule – but then the maintenance of the Airbus made a problem …

So keep in mind that currently Air Namibia cannot always keep what it sells. Also take other routes into consideration – like via Johannesburg, or even via Dubai flights of the same price category are to find.