By KENNEDY MUPESENI –

PROFLIGHT Zambia has been ranked as the fastest growing local airline in the southern African region, according to a latest aviation industry research.
Proflight Zambia’s capacity has almost doubled in the last five years.
According to a leading global aviation analysis company OAG Aviation, the airline recorded a growth in capacity of 89.8 per cent by capacity from 2010 to 2014 within and outside the southern Africa region.
Proflight was ranked third, after Ethiopian Airlines and Turkish Airlines, with Emirates in fourth place, followed by Mango and KLM.
Proflight Zambia was established in 1991 and is Zambia’s leading scheduled airline.
From its base in Lusaka its domestic routes included, Livingstone, Mfuwe, Lower Zambezi, Ndola, Solwezi and Kasama with regional routes to Lilongwe in Malawi, and Lubumbashi.
The airline has added Kafue National Park and Kitwe to its routes effective from July 1, this year.
Today, Proflight Zambia operates a 50-seater Bombardier CRJ-100 jet, three 29-seater Jet-stream 41 aircraft and four 18-seater Jet-stream 32 and two-12-seater Cessna Caravan C208 aircraft.
According Routesonline industry analysis website, looking at capacity data in the region across a five-year period, the increasing role of hub airlines from outside of the area serving the southern African market was clearly increasing.
The OAG analysis indicated that three of the top five and six of the top 10 fastest growing airlines by departure capacity within and from southern Africa were based outside of the region.
East African carrier Ethiopian Airlines had grown capacity by the biggest margin with capacity up 184.2 per cent from 2010.
Notable growth during this timescale was also recorded by Turkish Airlines of up to 90.3 per cent as its continued network growth had seen strong development in this part of Africa.
Other carriers from outside the region that had grown in southern Africa between 2010 and 2014 included Emirates Airline up by 80.2 per cent, KLM at 38.9 per cent Qatar Airways was up by 37.0 per cent while Kenya Airways recorded a growth of 24.5 per cent.
Zambia’s Proflight was the fastest growing local carrier within and from southern Africa by capacity between 2010 and 2014 up 89.8 per cent), while Malawian Airlines arrived in the market and has already established itself as the 13th largest operator in the region by capacity with a 1.0 per cent share of departure seats.
Only three airlines among the top 20 operators within and from southern Africa reported capacity declines between 2010 and 2014 and these were very modest falls.
These comprised Air Botswana which was down by 2.4 per cent, TAAG Angola Airlines down by 1.9 per cent and Air Zimbabwe being down by 1.3 per cent.