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Fan page for Zambia Airways Corporation Ltd. For all who have worked and traveled on QZ. The original fleet consisted of two Douglas DC-3 and three DHC-2 Beaver.

Zambia Airways Corporation was the flag carrier of the Republic of Zambia. Zambia Airways was founded in 1964 as a subsidiary of Central African Airways. By 1967 Zambia Airways had become independent of Central African Airways and acquired a pair of BAC 1-11-207s and a couple of HS.748s. They also leased from Alitalia a DC-8 with which services from Lusaka to London were started. Originally the Lo

ndon route was flown twice a week with intermediate stops at Nairobi, Kenya, and Rome, Italy. In 1975 the Boeing 707 replaced the DC-8 and the Boeing 737-200 replaced the BAC 1-11s and was often put into service to Johannesburg and other medium-haul routes. The widebody era arrived in 1984 with the acquisition of a DC-10. This was the only widebody used by Zambia Airways and was used to open a route to New York via Monrovia. This first DC-10, registered number 348 and christened "Nkwazi", was reportedly a point of national pride for many Zambian citizens. In 1989, a second DC-10 was leased from Sabena and later Lufthansa to help operate longhaul flights from Lusaka to London, Frankfurt, Rome, Larnaca, as well as a weekly service non-stop to Bombay in cooperation with Air India. Meanwhile, the ATR 42 replaced the HS.748s. The next fleet expansion consisted a of a freighter Boeing 757-200F which substituted the 707s. Zambia Airways ordered the MD-11 to replace its DC-8-71 while waiting for the delivery of the MD-11, which never occurred. In 1992, the government reportedly indicated that the airline would be responsible for its own debt services and had to operating expenses from its own revenues. Under this directive and in a worsening economic climate, the airline very quickly scaled back both domestically and internationally, and was liquidated in December of 1994.

12/03/2025

Hi everyone! We are back again with more posts. Please excuse the absence.
Many thanks to Mike Mulele for sending as his father's photo, Joe Mulele who used to work for Zambia Airways sometime in the 80s. He only has this photo of his father and hardly any work history on him as he passed away in the mid 80s. He is asking if anyone has any photos or more information on his father as he would really like to know. If anyone can help please reply to this post so we can help out Mike.

02/12/2023

Many thanks to Lombe Tresha for sending us this photo of his father. Anyone else have a parent in this photo?

29/03/2023

Many thanks to Arthur Chikoye Simaluwani for providing us with this photo of Zambia Airways engineers in Dublin 1975.

We have not posted in some time and look forward to receiving more photos if anyone has out there.

02/04/2022

Many thanks to Winnie Trudeau for providing us with this picture of her sister Elizabeth Fundafunda, among the first trained Zambia Airways cabin crew and Chief of Cabin Crew. Seen here with a UM (Unaccompanied Minor).

09/03/2022

Small Airlines, Great Expectations

In the past years 4 small African airlines have taken delivery of state-of-the-art long-range aircraft with big expectations namely Air Senegal, Air Tanzania, Rwandair and Uganda Airlines.

Air Senegal with a total fleet of 10 aircraft and 7 on order has taken delivery of the Airbus A330-900 for its long-range operations.

Air Tanzania with a total fleet of 11 aircraft and 4 on order has taken delivery of the Boeing 787-8 for its long-range operations.

Rwandair with a total fleet of 12 aircraft has taken delivery of the Airbus A330-200 and -300 for its long -range operations.

Uganda Airlines with a total fleet of 6 aircraft has taken delivery of the Airbus A330-800 for its long -range operations.

All these airlines are either flying to or plan on extending operations to destinations such as Brussels, Paris, London, New York, Washington, Mumbai, the far-east and many more.

Zambia Airways (QZ) Intercontinental network back then was to New York, London, Frankfurt, Rome, Larnaca and Bombay at one time. This gave the chance for travelers to fly directly to Zambia of which several also used Lusaka as a connection hub to other southern African countries such as Botswana, Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zaire etc.

So what are your thoughts on this? Do you think intercontinental direct flights to Zambia can help boost Zambian tourism and the economy?

21/02/2022

Today we have a look at a long survivor of Zambia Airways Boeing 707-338C with registration 9J-AEL still flying after 55 years!

The aircraft rolled out of the Boeing factory in July of 1967 and was delivered to Qantas Airways in September the same year. After only 10 years of service with the Australian airline it was sold to Zambia Airways and delivered from Sydney to Lusaka in May of 1977 with new registration 9J-AEL.
The aircraft remained with QZ for a further 10 years or so before being sold to Trans Arabian Air transport some time in 1988. In 1992 it went to Grumman Aerospace for joint-STARS conversion and since 1996 it’s been with the 93rd Air Control Wing at Robins air force base as USAF E-8C Joint-STARS P-2 where it still flies to this day.

04/02/2022

Today we are going to introduce you to one of the Boeing 707’s used by Zambia Airways that was a star in a movie but with a tragic ending… The plane was used in the 1970 movie “Airport” when at the time it was with Flying Tiger Line. It was then taken up by Irish airline Aer Lingus which leased it to Zambia Airways in 1975 to 1977 and then again in 1980 for a short while. The aircraft eventually ended up operating as cargo for Transbrazil in 1987. On 21 March 1989 the aircraft crashed 2 kilometers short of the runway when making its approach for landing at Sao Paulo. The result of this was when one of the crew members accidently activated the air brakes causing the aircraft to stall and crash into a residential area. All 3 crew members and another 22 people on the ground perished and more than 200 people injured.

22/01/2022

Hi Nkwazi’s! How is everybody doing?
Today we are going to compare the flagships of Zambia Airways Douglas DC10-30 and Air Zimbabwe Boeing 767-200ER. We will compare the 2 aircraft and see why QZ didn’t also go for the 767 just like Air Zimbabwe did but first we need to check out some statistics…

Passengers: The DC10-30 is a bigger aircraft than the 767-200ER. QZ had their aircraft configured in a 3 class with total seating of 230 passenger while AirZim 767 had theirs in 2 class configuration seating 197 passengers.

MTOW (maximum take of weight) and payload: The DC10-30 had a MTOW of 555,000 lbs compared to the 767-200ER 395,000 lbs. That’s a 160,000 pounds (72.5 tones) difference between the two aircraft! Furthermore the maximum payload of the DC10-30 was by 23,400 lbs (10.6 tones) more than the 767-200ER.

Range: The DC10-30 had a smaller range than the 767-200ER but QZ could take on more passengers and cargo! On average the DC10-30 could fly a maximum range of 5500 nautical miles while the 767-200ER would fly 6500 nautical miles. One might think that the difference of 1000 nm is not a lot but its actually about 2 hours of flying time. Of course at the time QZ was flying to London, Rome, Frankfurt, Larnaca and Bombay and the range of the Nkwazi was more than enough.

Date of first flight: One must take into consideration that the DC-10 in general had been flying already for over a decade from the 70’s although the 767-200ER was first introduced in 1984. More specifically the QZ DC10 first rolled off the production line in 1980 and was sitting around for 3 and half years before Zambia took delivery of it in 1984. Just this alone played a major role in price. Yes both of the airlines received brand new planes however AirZim got their first delivery at the end of 1989. Had QZ also opted for the 767-200ER they would have had to wait for at least 5 years if not more and by this time QZ was already flying to the USA from 1988.

So to basically summarise up on QZ’s DC10-30 Vs UM’s 767-200ER. The Nkwazi carried more passengers in a 3 class configuration, more cargo, higher take off weight and payload but didn’t fly so far as the 767-200ER but if you can make a refueling stop over then who needs much range especially if your plane costs quite a few millions of dollars less.

12/01/2022

A wonderful photo by Keyur Desai of the ATR-42, Boeing 737-200 and DC10-30 at Lusaka taken in September of 1993. As he tells us…

“I was fortunate enough to fly the entire QZ network from 1972 to 1993. The pilots had such pride in what they did that it rubbed off on a young impressionable boy (me), and instilled deep passion for aviation that has not left me 35 years later. This site brings back so many great memories of what I feel would have been Africa's top airline, would it have been allowed to remain operational. Thanks to all the pilots who allowed me to sit in the cockpit for the ATR 42/DC-10 flights... incredible!!”

07/01/2022

A happy new year to everyone! We start our post this year with inflight food. So who remembers... chicken or beef? What was your choice on the international flights?

29/12/2021

50 Years of Zambian Aviation Paperback – Illustrated. First published December 2, 2014. This book is now out of print and was limited available. A must have for all Zambian aviation geeks. Who has it?

23/12/2021

32 years ago this is how the QZ route network looked like. (Zambia Airways route map effective December 4, 1989.)

Furthermore in the issue of Flight International on 8 July 1989, McDonnell Douglas Corporation (MDC) announced its orders for the MD-11, one of them being for QZ which was expected delivery to Zambia Airways in January 1992. To be noted that had QZ gone ahead with this order Zambia would have been the first operator in Africa for the MD-11.

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