By JUDITH NAMUTOWE –

PROFLIGHT Zambia has completed the first step towards gaining the top safety accreditation standard in the international aviation industry.
This would pave way for the airline to be exempted from the European Union (EU) ban on Zambian-registered aircraft flying to Europe.
This is contained in a statement issued in Lusaka yesterday by Langmead & Baker Limited and made available to the Times of Zambia.
The airline last week completed the first of the three workshops approved under the International Air Transport Association (IATA)
Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) initiative.
IOSA is an internationally recognised and accepted evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline.
It is based on industry proven quality audit principles and designed to ensure that each audit is conducted in a standardised manner to achieve consistent results Proflight’s director of Government and industry affairs Philip Lemba said only 300 airlines around the world have passed the IOSA audit.
“The IOSA audit is the standard of safety audit in the world. Attaining IATA accreditation will elevate Proflight’s safety
credibility so that the airline can make a case for exemption from the EU ban list on Zambia,” he said.
Three IATA instructors conducted the latest workshop, attended by many key Proflight staff.
Captain Lemba said he was confident that Proflight staff would work hard enough to attain the accreditation.
“We have set up a task force and a steering committee to ensure we attain IOSA accreditation.
“We have extremely competent staff, one of who managed to score 100 per cent on his IOSA test during the workshop,” he said.