Christof Maletsky
29 July 2008
AIR Namibia has suspended a cabin crew member and launched a full-scale investigation into allegations of extortion on its July 11 flight to Luanda in Angola.
Helois //Hoabeb, General Manager for Commercial Services, said yesterday that the national airline would leave no stone unturned in rooting out corruption.
"We assure you that we will do all in our power to uncover all the facts.
All wrong and correct actions bear consequences and anyone found guilty will be held accountable," he said in a statement.
Air Namibia took the move after a passenger on its flight between Luanda and Windhoek blew the whistle on an air hostess.
The claims were detailed in a letter in The Namibian on Friday.
She allegedly cajoled clients in business class out of US dollars by not wanting to give them change for items bought or unilaterally increasing prices so that she could pocket the difference.
The air hostess allegedly also upgraded two clients to business class and asked them to pay her US$50 each.
When she received a payment of US$100 from one, the air hostess decided to keep the US$100 and insisted that the one client had also paid for the other.
After another passenger intervened, a lot of complaints and exchange of words in Portuguese and English, the air hostess allegedly returned the US$100.
According to the traveller, the steward, who also served the business class section, never intervened.
He described the entire episode as "shameless greed" by one individual.
//Hoabeb said such incidents were not known to the Air Namibia management or were extremely rare and had not reached management's ears before.
He said they took all allegations of malpractices, corruption, misrepresentation, extortion, and theft very seriously.
The Namibian has it on good authority that similar incidents have allegedly happened in the past but were not reported to the management.
"There have been several cover-ups in the past.
There are indications that it has happened and the investigation will probably reveal more details," a well-placed source said.
//Hoabeb said they regarded the incident as "extremely unpleasant and uncalled for".
"As an initiative to truly and absolutely curb corrupt practices in any form, including unethical behaviour, we recently publicly launched our Fraud Prevention Plan.
Our pride and differentiation approach to gain competitive advantage is enshrined in our service offerings that put people first," he said.
He said the incident would not mar their drive to a corruption-free Air Namibia and "necessary steps will follow on finalisation" of the investigation.
The investigation is expected to be completed within 21 days.
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