We welcome Emirates to Zambia. Now linking Dubai directly to Zambia by landing in Lusaka before continuing on to Harare in Zimbabwe. We are very excited about the opportunities this new service offers for bringing the world to our destination.

Emirates now flying to Zambia and Zimbabwe

The service will be operated by an Airbus A330-200 aircraft five times a week. Flight EK 713 departs Dubai every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 09.25hrs, arriving in Lusaka at 14.50hrs. It will then leave Lusaka at 16.20hrs, arriving in Harare at 17.20. The return flight leaves Harare at 19.20, arriving Lusaka at 20.20. It departs Lusaka at 21.50 and lands in Dubai at 07.10hrs the next day.

The inaugural flight takes place on Wednesday 1st February 2012.

This concerns the incident involving an Australian tourist which occurred on the 31st December 2011 and whereby the bungee cord she was jumping on broke, we now wish to update you as follows;

Firstly we would like to advise that the lady concerned has recovered very well and has now returned to Australia. We continue to wish her well now that she is back home.

Secondly we are pleased to announce that following a thorough investigation into the incident bungee jumping will recommence on the 2nd February 2012.

Since the incident a full and thorough investigation into the cause of the bungee cord failure was conducted which amongst other things included;
A detailed safety audit and inspection of the bungee jumping system at Victoria Falls. Subjecting the broken bungee cord to forensic analysis and testing.

During this process of investigation we chose to suspend bungee jumping operations so that the inspectors could carry out their work without interruption and to allow time for the forensic analysis to be carried out. Unfortunately this process took more time than we anticipated due to the availability of the experts.. We have been carrying out bungee jumping in accordance with this code {international standard (AS/NZS 5848:2000) for bungee jumping. } from the Victoria Falls bridge for over 17 years where approximately 150,000 jumps have been done without there ever having been a cord failure. The inspection of the cord which broke was carried out by a team of experts based in South Africa which was lead by two Professors in Structural Engineering. In their investigations the team amongst other things, compared the rubber used to make the bungee cord that broke against the latest batch of rubbers we obtained directly from our normal supplier. Our understanding of the investigation findings is that the rubbers from the cord which broke were not as strong as they should have been and were weaker than the newer rubbers. We will be taking this up with the rubber manufacturers. The newer rubbers which we will now use were found to be far stronger than the “Code of Practice for Bungy Jumping” requires. To ensure as best as possible the strength and integrity of all rubbers we use, we are arranging to have samples from every future batch of rubber tested before being put into service.

In light of the investigations and the opinions of both the safety auditors and the forensic investigators we are satisfied that the cause of the broken cord has been established and that the new standards, testing and inspection methods we have introduced will prevent a recurrence of the incident.

We are therefore pleased to announce that commercial bungee jumping operations will recommence on the 2nd February 2012.