Air travel in East Africa was really rather pleasant.  Once we arrived in Nairobi on British Airways, we flew on many different aircraft shuttling between locations, and on three different airlines.  Luckily we were able to spend one night in Nairobi first, catching up on much-needed sleep prior to making our way to the Serengeti.  From Dallas to Nairobi, it took us about 24 hours, so we were very tired.

Once inside Zambia (we arrived on Kenya Airways- see Tanzania section for details on that airline), we transferred to a Zambian Airways turbo-prop.  We had arranged ahead of time for this, though we needed a little help as Zambian Airways website allowed you to pick your flight, but then did not allow online booking (as of April 2006).  That will be a welcome addition when it happens, and it will happen, as there were non-active links on the website at the time that showed this was in the works.

The flights on Zambian Airways were largely on time- any delay was due to waiting on incoming international flights for connections, which is welcome.  We ourselves were running just a bit late on the Kenya Airways flight, and with slight delays in getting our baggage, and then dealing with paperwork on the ground, we were happy to have a little extra time to get on our flight to Mfuwe.

When you go to any airport in Zambia, you need to do several things before you check in.  If you arranged for your tickets overseas, you need to first go to a Zambian Airways office at the airport and get a paper printout of your ticket.  Once you have done this, you need to take that, with your passport, to an airport counter to pay (usually in cash) your airport departure tax.  In most cases for domestic flights, this is US$5 per person.  It is US$20 if you are leaving the country.  Once you have taken care of that, then you can go through security and check in- generally done at the gate for domestic flights.

The flights themselves were pleasant- we flew a total of four segments- Lusaka->Mfuwe return, and Lusaka->Livingstone return.  They were all without event and close to on time.

Of the airports, Lusaka was busiest, but still generally easy to navigate and figure out what you need and where to go.  Mfuwe and Livingstone were small and very simple to get through.