On 6 july 2001, The Namibian published an analysis I wrote as a final-year MBA student – ‘Crisis Heroism and Shifting the Burden, a Focus on Air Namibia’.
Air Namibia had just run up what was then a shocking N$350 million in debt following a major management reshuffle, and the government was preparing the first of what would become many multimillion-dollar rescue packages.
I argued, using a simple systems-thinking model, that the airline was treating symptoms but leaving the disease untouched; that unless it changed course, the debt would keep rising, the crises would keep recurring, and the state’s capacity to keep bailing it out would eventually dry up.
Twenty-five years later, with Air Namibia liquidated and its successor Namibia Air taking shape, we must be blunt: was that warning right, and is anyone listening to it now?
THE SEDUCTION OF QUICK FIXES
In systems theory, the pattern I described in 2001 has a name: ‘shifting the burden’.
An organisation in crisis has a choice: fix the symptoms or replace the leadership, restructure the balance sheet, declare victory – and enjoy a quick, visible win.
Or it can fix the underlying problem: the culture, the skills, the leadership agility, the business model itself.
A quick fix is seductive. It produces headlines, and it buys time. But every time an organisation chooses the quick fix over the hard fix, it becomes more dependent on quick fixes, and a little less capable of doing the hard work.
I predicted that Air Namibia would keep quick-fixing, that its debt would keep rising, and that eventually the country’s patience – and the money – would run out.
There is a leadership dimension to this story too.
Leadership scholars describe a spectrum of leadership maturity: at one end, reactive, heroic styles parachuted in to fix a visible symptom and take a bow.
Then there is what is often called leadership agility – the capacity to sense weak signals early, sit with ambiguity long enough to understand a problem properly, and build new structures collaboratively rather than simply defend old ones.
What I called ‘crisis heroism’ in 2001 is a textbook case of the reactive end of that spectrum: a new chief executive parachuted in to be seen fixing things, applauded for a short-term win, then quietly replaced once the underlying numbers caught up with the airline again.
This cycle will only be broken if the airline’s leaders are able to say no to political pressure, are willing to keep uncomfortable questions open until they are properly resolved, and are willing to be judged on quiet structural discipline rather than a dramatic turnaround story.
BILLION-DOLLAR QUESTIONS
When the axe fell in February 2021, the airline had liabilities of close to N$5.4 billion and barely N$1 billion in assets.
By the time of liquidation, the cumulative bailout bill was between N$8 billion and N$9 billion by the government’s own figures.
The finance minister of the day said Air Namibia had been ‘a flawed business model since the beginning’, with 15 of its 19 routes unprofitable.
In 2001, I asked whether Air Namibia was in the right business, whether it had the right people, and whether the flag and national pride were being used to shut down badly needed national conversations.
Those questions went unanswered for two decades. In the end, the market and the treasury have answered them for us.
There is a business dimension as well. Twenty-five years of bailouts never once forced the airline, through business model innovation – to genuinely redesign what it does, who it serves, what it charges, and how its costs are structured.
Each rescue package refinanced the same value proposition and the same loss-making routes instead of reinventing them.
Real business model innovation would have meant asking, rigorously and early, which routes deserved to exist, what the actual purpose of a national carrier is, and how ownership and capital should be structured to reward efficiency rather than shield it from consequences.
That work was never done. It cannot be skipped again. Yet we are doing it again.
GOOD INTENTIONS NOT THE ISSUE
The Cabinet approved the name ‘Namibia Air (Pty) Ltd’ in November 2025: a fully state-owned entity for now, with a public-private partnership model still under negotiation, an interim board, and a launch targeted for the beginning of December 2026.
Officials have been clear that this is meant to be a clean break rather than a resurrection of the old carrier.
“We are not reviving Air Namibia. We are reviving a national airline,” works and transport minister Veikko Nekundi has said.
However, good intentions were never the problem. The structural questions that have plagued airline are once again sitting unanswered on the design table.
Namibia Air is starting out fully state-owned while a private partner is still being sought.
That is precisely the ownership question I called an ‘undiscussable’ in 2001. This time we have a chance to resolve it before the first crisis, not after the tenth. Opposition voices have already called the new airline ‘a gamble’ with taxpayer funds, and the media have already flagged concerns about the pace and transparency of the process before a single aircraft has flown a single route.
These are not distractions. They early warnings which must be taken seriously.
This is not a call for caution somewhere down the line.
It is an imperative for right now.
QUADRUPLING UP
Four things must happen before a single ticket is sold.
First, settle the ownership question now, while it is still cheap to settle. A carrier that launches fully state-owned while still hunting for a private partner is repeating the ‘undiscussable’ I flagged in 2001.
It must be resolved at the design table, not deferred to the next crisis.
Second, write the guardrails into law and governance before launching: a board empowered to say no to a minister, a public cap on state guarantees, and an independent route-profitability review should be built into the business model from day one, not bolted on once the losses start.
Third, refuse to celebrate an early good headline as proof of success.
Judge Namibia Air only on route-level profitability, service quality and genuine commercial discipline, sustained over years – not on how much better the first annual report looks than Air Namibia’s last one.
Fourth, do not let the flag and national pride do the job a business plan is supposed to do.
If a route cannot be justified commercially, sentiment must not be allowed to keep flying at public expense.
The first two of these are, at heart, business model innovation decisions – redesigning who owns the airline and how its economics work.
The last two demand exactly the kind of leadership agility that crisis heroism has always lacked – the discipline to resist an early win and stay accountable to the harder, longer measures of success.
‘ON THE WINGS OF A PRAYER?’
In 2001, only half in jest, I suggested that in the absence of real reform, Namibia’s only remaining option was a national day of prayer for both Air Namibia and Namibian football.
Twenty-five years and roughly N$8 billion later, that line reads less like a joke and more like an unheeded warning.
Namibia Air has one advantage its predecessor never had: it gets to read this ‘obituary’ before it is written. That advantage expires the moment the first aircraft takes off.
Acting on these four imperatives is not an optional caution, it is the only thing standing between Namibia Air and a repeat performance.
– Stanley Nick Katzao is a business leader and MBA candidate in leadership and sustainability at the University of Cumbria, researching business model innovation and leadership agility in the context of Namibia’s aviation sector. He authored the original 2001 analysis of Air Namibia referenced in this piece.
