Namibia is moving closer to returning to the airline business, five years after liquidating loss-making Air Namibia, reopening a national debate over whether the country needs a flag carrier and, more importantly, whether a new airline can avoid the financial and strategic failures of its predecessor.
The government is developing a new carrier under the working identity Namibia Air, with a feasibility study completed, air service licences already granted and discussions underway with potential strategic partners, including Ethiopian Airlines. Officials insist the project is not simply a resurrection of Air Namibia, but an attempt to establish a new airline around a commercially sustainable operating model.
The plans have nevertheless attracted strong domestic criticism, particularly because of Air Namibia’s costly history. When the former national carrier was liquidated in 2021, then-finance minister Iipumbu Shiimi said taxpayers had spent about N$8.4 billion over the preceding decade trying to keep it afloat. Other estimates put cumulative government support over roughly two decades at more than N$8 billion.
At liquidation, Air Namibia had liabilities of around N$3 billion against assets valued at N$981 million, according to figures reported at the time. The airline had struggled with losses for years, leaving government to repeatedly inject public funds before eventually concluding that the model was unsustainable.
The question confronting Namibia in 2026 is therefore not simply whether the country should have an airline. It is whether the economics that made the previous airline unsustainable have changed sufficiently to justify another attempt.
Government says this time will be different
Works and Transport Minister Veikko Nekundi confirmed in June that a feasibility study for the proposed airline had been completed and was under review.
Although N$20 million had initially been budgeted for the exercise, Nekundi said less than 4% — below N$800,000 — had actually been spent. The study was undertaken by an inter-ministerial team incorporating aviation, legal, economic and governance expertise.
The project subsequently cleared an important regulatory hurdle in August when the Transportation Commission of Namibia approved both scheduled and non-scheduled air service licences for Namibia Air. The granting of a licence, however, establishes regulatory permission to operate; it does not by itself establish the commercial viability of the proposed airline.
The government has also begun exploring possible partnerships.
Earlier this month, Namibia’s Ministry of Works and Transport confirmed discussions with Ethiopian Airlines over potential technical and strategic cooperation. But it stressed that no binding agreement has been concluded, after an internal document circulating publicly prompted speculation about the structure of a potential partnership.
The ministry said the consultations are intended specifically to avoid repeating the mistakes that contributed to Air Namibia’s financial collapse.
That distinction could prove critical.
A national airline does not necessarily have to mean a traditional, wholly state-operated flag carrier with government owning aircraft, employing thousands of workers and underwriting losses. Namibia has several possible models available, ranging from a public-private partnership to a strategic equity investment, management agreement or a considerably smaller airline focused on routes where the country can demonstrate a genuine connectivity requirement.
The government has previously indicated that a partnership model is being considered, and Ethiopian Airlines represents an obvious African reference point given its experience providing technical expertise and investing in other carriers on the continent.
The economic argument is more complicated than having a flag
The opposition to Namibia Air reflects a broader debate playing out across African aviation: when does a national airline become an economic instrument, and when does it become an expensive symbol of sovereignty?
Critics argue Namibia has more pressing demands for public resources and that aviation connectivity does not necessarily require government to own an airline.
That argument has considerable historical evidence behind it in Namibia’s case. Air Namibia received repeated state support despite persistent financial difficulties. When government finally closed it, officials cited an unsustainable business model, including problems with fleet deployment and staffing.
But the opposite argument also deserves examination.
Namibia is a geographically large country with a relatively small population, a substantial tourism industry and considerable distances between economic centres. International air connectivity has direct implications for tourism, investment, trade and access to global markets.
The policy question, therefore, is not simply whether aviation has economic value. It clearly does. The more difficult question is whether owning a national airline is the most efficient way of purchasing that connectivity.
Namibia could alternatively incentivise existing airlines, negotiate stronger bilateral access, reduce aviation costs, improve airport infrastructure and encourage private carriers to open routes.
Foreign airlines already provide significant international connectivity into Namibia. The government must consequently demonstrate where a new national carrier would add connectivity that the existing market cannot provide economically — rather than merely competing for passengers already being transported by other airlines.
That is where the unpublished feasibility study becomes particularly important.
The IMF has already raised the fiscal question
The debate has also attracted scrutiny beyond Namibia.
In its 2026 Article IV assessment, the International Monetary Fund noted that Namibia was exploring a new national airline through a public-private partnership and said a careful assessment of the fiscal costs and risks would be essential. The IMF placed the issue within a broader discussion about managing risks arising from public enterprises.
That warning goes to the heart of the issue.
An airline can generate economic benefits beyond its own balance sheet through tourism, employment, trade and connectivity. Governments routinely consider those wider effects when supporting aviation.
But those benefits do not remove the requirement for financial discipline.
If a government decides that a commercially unattractive route nevertheless provides sufficient economic value to justify support, that subsidy can be transparent, measurable and periodically reviewed. It does not automatically require the state to absorb the financial risks of an entire airline.
This distinction has become increasingly important across Africa, where national carriers have often been asked simultaneously to operate commercially and fulfil political, diplomatic, tourism and developmental objectives.
Those objectives can conflict.
Air Namibia offers its successor a valuable warning
The strongest argument for Namibia Air may ironically be the failure of Air Namibia itself — provided its lessons genuinely shape the new company.
Air Namibia’s former network included Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Gaborone, Durban, Victoria Falls, Harare and Lusaka alongside domestic services.
A successor does not necessarily need to reconstruct that network.
Starting smaller, matching aircraft capacity carefully to demand and building around regional connectivity could produce a fundamentally different airline from the previous flag carrier.
Fleet strategy will be particularly important. African airlines have repeatedly suffered from aircraft that were too large for their markets, excessive fleet complexity and expensive long-haul ambitions introduced before sufficiently dense regional networks existed.
A new Namibian airline would therefore need to answer some basic commercial questions before its first aircraft departs: Which routes are genuinely underserved? How much demand is local rather than connecting? What aircraft can serve those markets profitably? What load factors and yields are required? How much capital will be needed before break-even? And who absorbs the losses if those assumptions prove wrong?
Those questions matter far more than the name painted on the fuselage.
Ethiopian could change the equation — but not eliminate the risk
The discussions with Ethiopian Airlines are therefore particularly interesting.
Ethiopian brings something many attempted African flag-carrier revivals have lacked: an existing aviation ecosystem encompassing fleet management, maintenance, training, network planning, technical expertise and one of Africa’s largest connecting hubs.
A properly structured partnership could allow Namibia to access some of those capabilities without recreating every function internally.
But even a strong strategic partner cannot manufacture demand.
The airline’s commercial proposition must still work within the realities of Namibia’s relatively small domestic market and the competitive regional environment.
And the Namibian government has explicitly said that its talks with Ethiopian and other stakeholders remain exploratory. Reports suggesting that a management agreement has already been settled should therefore be treated cautiously; the ministry says no binding commitment has been made.
Africa has seen this movie before
Namibia’s experiment will be watched well beyond Windhoek because the debate mirrors one taking place across the continent.
African governments continue to see national airlines as instruments of connectivity, tourism, trade and national development. Yet the continent also contains numerous examples of carriers that became persistent drains on public finances after commercial considerations were subordinated to political objectives.
The lesson is not necessarily that governments should never participate in airlines. Ethiopian Airlines itself demonstrates that state ownership and commercial success are not inherently incompatible.
The more useful distinction is between state ownership and state interference — and between strategically justified public investment and indefinite subsidy without measurable returns.
For Namibia, that makes governance potentially more important than aircraft.
A credible new airline would require an independent board, experienced management, clearly defined commercial objectives, disciplined fleet and network planning, transparent public funding and predetermined limits on how much financial support government is prepared to provide.
Without those protections, the risk is not simply that Namibia creates another airline.
It is that it recreates the conditions that destroyed the last one.
The government says it intends to do precisely the opposite. Its feasibility study is complete, Namibia Air has secured its first regulatory approvals and discussions with potential partners are progressing.
Whether Namibia Air becomes a smarter model of African state participation in aviation or another expensive chapter in the continent’s long history of struggling flag carriers will depend less on the symbolism of restoring the flag to the skies than on the commercial architecture being built underneath it.
For a country that has already spent billions learning that lesson once, the economics of the second attempt will face considerably greater scrutiny.
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