Air Namibia Can Do More

WHILE it is good news to learn that Air Namibia is rationalising its flight schedules in an effort to ‘minimise its losses and optimise its opportunities’, as announced at a press conference this week, we would have liked to have heard of more belt-tightening exercises, perhaps even a salary freeze, to try and get the finances of the airline onto a more even keel.

According to airline executives, the almost immediate cessation of the Windhoek/London flight, as well as other pruned flight schedules in the region, came about as a result of the global recession and its impact on Namibian tourism, which had come as ‘no surprise’ to the airline.However, we are well aware that Air Namibia being in the financial doldrums is not a result of the global recession, but has been an ongoing problem for many years now. At the end of the last financial year, Air Namibia’s losses stood at N$180 million and that was before the global recession began to bite. The recession could have given it impetus, but our national airline’s demise is certainly not primarily due to it. We need to emphasise this point lest we excuse ourselves from bad management practices over the years.And the downturn is set to continue, according to Acting Managing Director Theo Namases, who added that they are still ‘expecting the worst effect of the crisis to hit home’.He said that a monthly decrease of about 22 per cent in air freight, as well as a big drop in passenger numbers, were just some of the problems that the airline was currently facing.So the announcement of the scrapping of the London flight and the cutting of flights on the Johannesburg, Victoria Falls-Maun and coastal routes, are probably well-advised moves at this point. In turn, flights to Frankfurt and to Luanda will increase, presumably because these are routes in higher demand, but also in order to avoid planes standing idle, which makes good sense. But if worse is yet to come, as Air Namibia’s acting Management implied, then even more will need to be done to offset further economic deterioration for the airline.What struck reporters attending the briefing was the absence of the Chief Executive Officer at such an important public information meeting, and the number of ‘acting’ senior officials who were present. Apart from Theo Namases, who is the ‘acting’ CEO; there was also the ‘acting’ General Manager of Operations, Mlinga Muyunda; and the ‘acting’ General Manager of Technical Services.And inevitably, the presence of mainly ‘acting’ senior personnel, leads the inquiring mind to wonder whether the prospect of a salary freeze has been considered by airline management as yet another cost-cutting measure, given that times are not going to get better in the near future.Problems with viability of national airlines are not new. It is well known that the national airline of Switzerland, for example, was taken over by Lufthansa in order to keep flying under the national flag.Many years ago such a prospect was mooted here in Namibia, shortly before Lufthansa ceased its flights from Windhoek to Frankfurt, but national sentiment went against the idea of any kind of merger with the German airline.And Air Namibia has grappled, virtually since Independence, with problems of skilled management, which, combined with other issues, have militated against the airline making things work. In turn constant Government bailouts have been the order of the day since then. The total bailout since 2000 has amounted to N$2,46 billion. That is nearly as much as Namibia’s entire estimated Budget deficit for 2009-10 (N$3,1 bn)Most Namibians would like to see the continuation of their national airline, but we would encourage Air Namibia management, as well as the Board and Ministry under which it resorts, to very consistently look at ways and means to manage a deteriorating situation and to ensure the survival of the airline.Ours is not the first airline to go through this process. And it does imply that we should look at the examples of others, and the ways in which they have either solved their financial crises, or had to shut up shop if they didn’t. That may be the only solution left if we do not follow the example and the expertise of others, to find a way out of the current impasse.