Support Your National Carrier

I AM referring to an earlier letter where the writer complained about the Air Namibia Business Class surcharges.

I have been at Commercial Aviation for almost 20 years now and I am currently working for one of the largest airlines within Star Alliance. My recommendation to Air Namibia is: go ahead with your pricing strategy.Those who can afford to travel Business Class and those who are entitled to use Business Class on a business trip are not that price sensitive.Should an airline really reduce the airfare to attract a few more passengers to use the front cabin and at the same time dilute the revenue they get in this premium compartment? Well, I guess the answer is obvious.At the same time, I wonder if the author of the letter ever compared the criticised airfares with competitor fares? I doubt it, as I do not see SAA or LH giving their premium seats away for low rates.They are even more expensive.The pricing structure of AirNam is very competitive and very clever too.In times where not enough passengers are bound for Windhoek only, with attractive fares they manage to get a remarkable number of passengers from SAA, LH, etc, who are bound for Cape Town.Those passengers are even supporting Namibia as they pay the ticket to Air Namibia.If they would go on SAA direct or on Emirates via DXB, their money would not even touch ground in Namibia.And since they have some transit time in Hosea Kutako airport, you should please ask the bars and shops there how much more money these passengers spend in the country before leaving for their final destination.Namibians, please be proud of your airline.It is carrying your national flag throughout the world and its service is excellent most of the time.Technical and maintenance problems occur with all airlines and no carrier in the world has enough “spare” aircraft to replace a broken one in case a scheduled flight cannot take off.Just remember LH in Windhoek just before they pulled out of Namibia: they had a four-day technical delay.Last but not least: please do not underestimate the impact a negative press has on the sales results of your airline.If all would stand behind the national carrier, use it yourself and promote it even with your guests and visitors, each of you, as Namibian citizens, could very actively support the Government to generate more revenue for Air Namibia, as people from overseas would even have more trust and confidence in that airline.Michael Schmidtke Neebstrasse 3 D-60385 Frankfurt GermanyMy recommendation to Air Namibia is: go ahead with your pricing strategy.Those who can afford to travel Business Class and those who are entitled to use Business Class on a business trip are not that price sensitive.Should an airline really reduce the airfare to attract a few more passengers to use the front cabin and at the same time dilute the revenue they get in this premium compartment? Well, I guess the answer is obvious.At the same time, I wonder if the author of the letter ever compared the criticised airfares with competitor fares? I doubt it, as I do not see SAA or LH giving their premium seats away for low rates.They are even more expensive.The pricing structure of AirNam is very competitive and very clever too.In times where not enough passengers are bound for Windhoek only, with attractive fares they manage to get a remarkable number of passengers from SAA, LH, etc, who are bound for Cape Town.Those passengers are even supporting Namibia as they pay the ticket to Air Namibia.If they would go on SAA direct or on Emirates via DXB, their money would not even touch ground in Namibia.And since they have some transit time in Hosea Kutako airport, you should please ask the bars and shops there how much more money these passengers spend in the country before leaving for their final destination.Namibians, please be proud of your airline.It is carrying your national flag throughout the world and its service is excellent most of the time.Technical and maintenance problems occur with all airlines and no carrier in the world has enough “spare” aircraft to replace a broken one in case a scheduled flight cannot take off.Just remember LH in Windhoek just before they pulled out of Namibia: they had a four-day technical delay.Last but not least: please do not underestimate the impact a negative press has on the sales results of your airline.If all would stand behind the national carrier, use it yourself and promote it even with your guests and visitors, each of you, as Namibian citizens, could very actively support the Government to generate more revenue for Air Namibia, as people from overseas would even have more trust and confidence in that airline.Michael Schmidtke Neebstrasse 3 D-60385 Frankfurt Germany