Proflight Zambia will eventually phase out its fleet of BAE Systems Jetstream 31s and 41s to become a “jet only” operator, commercial director Keira Irwin discloses.
“We are reducing frequencies and increasing capacity on a lot of the routes by bringing in the [Bombardier] CRJ100 so our plan is by the end of next year we will have phased out the Jetstream 31s completely,” Irwin tells Flightglobal adding that “in a few years down the line the [Jetstream] 41s will eventually be phased out and [we will become] a jet-only operation”.
"We can’t grow much more in the domestic market, we have got the monopoly in the market and we can’t grow much more because there just isn’t the elasticity in the domestic market so the only way that we can expand is to expand regionally but you can’t stick people in a Jetstream 41 for two hours," she adds.
Proflight Zambia currently has one CRJ100 on dry-lease from CemAir and Irwin says the Lusaka-based carrier will dry lease “at least” one more CRJ100 next year.
Flightglobal’s Ascend Online Fleets database shows the carrier’s fleet includes three Jetsteam 41s, four Jetsteam 31s and three Britten-Norman Islanders.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
