Air Namibia partners Kenya Airways

The agreement, which went live in June 2013, sees Air Namibia selling seats under its own name on Kenya Airways operated flights and vice versa. The arrangement will also allow the national carrier, which has been seeking to expand its route network, to provide its clients with worldwide services, through an extensive network of convenient flight connections as Kenya Airways has a route network covering 59 destinations worldwide.

Air Namibia MD, Theo Namases said the code share arrangement will help the two parties increase sales through access to new markets while also facilitating growth in the tourism and aviation industry of the two countries.

She added: "Some of the benefits this code share arrangement will bring to our passengers include, connecting flights. This provides clearer routing for the customer, allowing a customer to book his/her travel from point A to C through point B under one carrier's code, instead of a customer booking from point A to B under one code, and from point B to C under another code. This is not only a superficial addition as cooperating airlines also strive to synchronize their schedules and coordinate luggage handling, which makes transfers between connecting flights less time-consuming."

The two airlines will also have shared responsibility when passengers or their luggage miss the connecting flight.

"When flying between two cities without a single-airline connection, the passenger can pick a code shared flight over two airlines or two flights booked separately. If the flights are not code shared, then the second airline has no responsibility if the passenger or luggage misses the second flight due to a delay with the first. Under a code shared flight, the second airline is unlikely to charge extra fees or deny boarding should the first, cooperating airline cause a delay," Namases said.

Air Namibia's four flights per week into Lusaka and its daily flights via Johannesburg will extend to Nairobi using the code share arrangement which extends to Nairobi. The Air Namibia MD said the option for going through Lusaka comes in handy for those passengers who were required to have transit Visa's for South Africa.