Namibian airline, Westair, made its inaugural flight into Cape Town on Friday 4 October 2019. The airline will be offering 7 flights a week for 4 days a week from Eros Airport in Windhoek, stopping at Oranjemund on the way to Cape Town.

Cape Town is the first international destination for Westair who currently operate between Windhoek and Ondangwa, Walvis Bay and Oranjemund. Aviation analyst Linden Birns notes that this extension of Westair service to Cape Town is significant in that “in the mid 2000s Namibia amended its bilateral air service agreement with South Africa to prohibit the use of [Windhoek’s] Eros as an international gateway (this was in response to Airlink operating a successful service on the CPT-Eros route and Air Namibia, which was operating 737s at the time, being unable to compete). The stop in Oranjemund is obviously so that the new operator can sidestep the ban and must surely be operating the return service under four flight numbers and four flight plans (Eros-Oranjemund, Oranjemund-CPT and vice versa).

Westair Aviation’s current fleet consist of over 30 aircraft. The aircraft suit relevant operations such as freight-transporting, crew rotations for mining operations and offering VIP charters to The Namibian government.

The airline operates a variety of scheduled and unscheduled air cargo flights and has been offering a dedicated cargo service to DHL over the past 20 years during which time Westair Aviation has maintained an impressive dispatch reliability record. Through offering dedicated assistance to the cargo industry, Westair Aviation also supports the mining sector in transferring high-value cargo across Africa.