By 1958, a fleet of seven Ryan Navions and one de Havilland Dragon Rapide served a route network that included Grootfontein, Tsumeb, Otjiwarongo, Outjo, Swakopmund, Walvis Bay and Windhoek.

[8] On 26 March 1959,[9] SWAT merged with Oryx Aviation — a small passenger airline established three years earlier[10]— to form South West Airways (Afrikaans: Suidwes Lugdiens).

[16] A Fairchild-Hiller FH-227 was acquired in 1974, and a Convair 580 was later incorporated into the fleet to perform charter flights carrying miners to their jobs in Grootfontein and Tsumeb.

[10] On 6 August 1989, a Boeing 737-200 leased from South African Airways that flew the Windhoek–Johannesburg route inaugurated the carrier's jet era.

[21] Air Namibia was re-absorbed into the Namibian government after an injection of US$3,700,000 (equivalent to $6,916,537 in 2023) in 1998, following the precarious cash position it was led into by TransNamib.

[22] LTU, Germany's second largest airline at the time, entered into a codeshare agreement with Air Namibia in February 1998.

[41] On 8 July 2020 the Transportation Commission of Namibia suspended the carrier's Scheduled Air Services Licence, citing financial and safety concerns.

[42] In October 2020 the airline was given notice by Belgian lawyer Anicet Baum, of the company Challengair, claiming that Air Namibia was insolvent and unable to repay its debts to Challengeair (an amount of 18,s million Euro), which was settled to be repaid in instalments until September 2021.

[43] On 11 February 2021, the Namibian government announced the immediate shutdown and liquidation of Air Namibia due to overwhelming debt and years of financial dependence from the state.

[3] In late October 2021, a South African aviation company offered 3.2 billion Namibian dollars to purchase the airline.

[citation needed] The company previously operated the following aircraft:[55] Media related to Air Namibia at Wikimedia Commons