South African private-sector domestic and regional airline Airlink has opened new offices in both Botswana and Zambia, in Gaborone and Lusaka respectively. The purpose of these offices is to strengthen the airline’s services to its customers in the two countries, including flight reservations and ticketing, as well as special services assistance.

“Our new Gaborone and Lusaka city offices will enable us to have closer, more direct contact with our customers and the trade as these markets continue to grow,” affirmed Airlink CEO and MD Rodger Foster. “We have deliberately located these offices for maximum customer convenience, saving them time, trouble and expense of having to go to the ticketing offices at those cities’ airports.”

Airlink operates up to 50 return flights every week to three destinations in Botswana, namely Gaborone (the capital), Kasane and Maun. It operates up to 40 return flights a week to Zambia, again to three destinations: Livingstone, Lusaka (the capital) and Ndola.

“Botswana and Zambia are both important and vibrant markets for Airlink, which provides crucial connectivity for people travelling for business and leisure,” he highlighted. “As international long-haul tourism recovers, we are seeing strong demand for travel on our services to Maun, the Okavango Delta and Livingstone (on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls). Business travel is also picking up with increased trade and other commercial activity in those markets.”

Airlink was set up in 1992 and now operates a fleet of more than 60 modern jet airliners. Its network now covers 45 destinations across South, Southern and East Africa, as well as Madagascar and St Helena Island. It has established partnerships with 34 airlines, and has code-sharing agreements with five of them, including some of the world’s major intercontinental carriers. It has also invested in FlyNamibia.

As measured by the Airports Company South Africa, Airlink has been South Africa’s most on-time airline for the past two years. So far this year it has achieved an average on-time performance of 93.04%.