Zambians are proud to see a home-grown successful enterprise that soars above any turbulence – just like leading air service Proflight Zambia.
Next year the company marks its 30th anniversary. No other private Zambian airline has flourished for so long in the country’s aviation history.
Its role in the economic growth of the nation is a key factor in its success, and it is a position it hopes will come to the fore again as the world comes out of the COVID-19 bubble and starts to revitalise its economies.
As life and travel continues in the new normal in 2021, the airline is looking to the sustainable of economic activity, helping industries and businesses to feed off one another and grow as the economy expands and picks up from COVID-19 economic effect.
COVID-19 has crimped many of the world’s economies and has not spared Zambia as a whole. The air transport industry has been hard hit and faces various challenges, including insufficient airport infrastructure across the country, and a shortage of physical and human resources as well as limited connectivity.
But Zambia’s successful entrepreneurs and business owners have different passions and they translate them into a wealth of ideas and ventures in diverse industries.
To create an enabling environment for a population of more than 18 million people in Zambia, the country over the last ten years has embarked on a massive exercise to build an renew its infrastructure in the aviation sector, which will help boost more traffic.
Proflight chairman Captain Phillip Lemba tells how the airline will look to take advantage by influencing investors and tourists to explore Zambia using the airlines’ reliable service.
He said: “We can’t wait for the new terminal at KKIA (Kenneth Kaunda International Airport) to be completed. We want to use the new facility to showcase our services in a bid to attract more investors.
“We want the airline to improve the quality of life by broadening people’s leisure and cultural experiences.”
Expanding the travel market internationally helps boost productivity across the local economy, and improved transport links expand the market in which companies operate.
As a result, companies are better able to exploit economies of scale, thereby reducing costs, and able to specialise in areas of comparative advantage.
“Furthermore, we want to help boost the tourism sector and enhance value addition by providing a wide choice of holiday destinations in the country. The airline will remain an affordable means to visit distant friends and relatives,” said Capt. Lemba.
Airport taxes also add to the expense of air travel and ticket fares fluctuate due to tax hikes, the exchange rate and other factors. These taxes are needed to invest in the infrastructure required at the airports but are prohibitive to the cost of domestic air tickets.
In order to boost domestic travel, there is an immense need to reduce airport taxes in a bid to stabilise and enable domestic airlines to reduce fares, encouraging a greater number of local travellers to fly domestically.
This will in turn prompt Zambians to travel by air more frequently as air travel is the most convenient and quickest form of transport and the best way to do business
Doing this could boost intra-African business, trade, foreign exchange, tourism as well as cultural exchange.
Proud of its outstanding reputation, Proflight Zambia, the country’s leading scheduled airline, from its base in Lusaka, flies domestic routes to Livingstone, Mfuwe, Lower Zambezi, Ndola, and Solwezi, and regional routes to Johannesburg in South Africa.
In this vein, Proflight, a Zambian-owned airline, has continuously played the role of catalyst for diversification by providing business owners and their clients a safe, reliable and efficient service with the variety of planes in its fleet.
