Air Namibia (Windhoek International) has suspended flights to Zimbabwe as a precautionary measure following the brief impounding of an E145 earlier this month.
On wet-lease from Westair Aviation (WAA, Windhoek Eros), V5-WEB (msn 145440) was seized by the Sheriff of the High Court in Harare as part of a USD1 million lawsuit filed by a Zimbabwean family in a Harare court earlier this year. The case pertains to damages the affected family says they suffered as a result of what they claimed to be their unlawful detention at Windhoek International in February 2017. Air Namibia has since argued it had acted within its rights in denying the family onward passage to Frankfurt International after being instructed by German immigration not to allow them to board the flight to Germany.
"Our position is that the family's claim is baseless as we did everything within the ambits of industry practice, standards and norms," it said. "As an airline, we reserve our rights to refuse passengers on our flight if they fail to meet the immigration requirements of the countries we fly to, as that will be in contravention on international immigration laws. If the Zimbabwean system allows and supports such lawlessness, they are a risk to us, and we will be consulting our mandate holder on our future as far as flights in Zimbabwe are concerned."
As an interim measure, Air Namibia said it has since cancelled all flights to Harare pending the outcome of the matter. It has also resolved to divert flights between Windhoek and Victoria Falls to Livingstone, Zambia, for the period October 6 to 27, 2018.
In the meantime, Air Namibia said it had hired local Zimbabwean law firm, Honey & Blanckenburg, to have its appeal to the Zimbabwean Supreme Court reinstated. If done so, it would automatically suspend an earlier High Court attachment order pending the outcome of a Supreme Court review.
