It plans to make air travel affordable, accessible, comfortable and reliable

Elenoa Baselala
After months of delay caused by a legal challenge, Fiji's national carrier Air Pacific is finally ready to take on the domestic scene.

John Campbell... airfares will be reduced by 50%.

Chief executive John Campbell said its subsidiary, Fiji Airlines Ltd (trading as Pacific Sun), will acquire the business of Sun Air from the 1st of this month.

"For the first three months or so there will be no change to the Sun Air network and the aircraft flown will be those currently operated by Sun Air with the exception of two ATR42-500 44- seat turbo prop aircraft which have been purchased by Pacific Sun.

"The ATR42s will be deployed between Nadi-Suva on the Suva-Nadi-Labasa routes and on regional services to Nuku'alofa, Funafuti and Port Vila," Campbell said.

The initial network for Pacific Sun will be between Nadi-Suva, Labasa, Savusavu, Taveuni, Kadavu and Mana and Plantation Islands.

Initial plan: The initial plan is to operate a minimum of three daily flights between Nadi-Suva, two daily flights Suva-Labasa, one daily Nadi-Labasa, three daily Nadi-Savusavu, two daily Nadi-Taveuni, one daily Nadi-Kadavu and six each day Nadi to Mana and Plantation.

Air Pacific/Pacific Sun's ATR42-500 plane... at Nadi Airport.

"We will utilise the first two months of operation to assess demand, both existing and forecast, and adjust the schedule to both meet and drive additional demand," says Campbell.

Keeping up with its international standards, Campbell says the two ATR42-500 aircraft are fully air-conditioned and fitted with an international quality and a seat clearance of 33 inches.

The Twin Otters acquired from Sun Air will also be cosmetically changed through repainting and interior refitting.

"We will progressively refurbish the interiors of the aircraft (including the installation of air conditioning), remove one row of seats taking the aircraft from 17 to 14 seats and thus increasing leg room for each customer as a consequence.

"We are planning the retirement of the Britten-Norman Islander aircraft and replacing it with other aircraft which are under assessment for their suitability for operations not only to Mana and Plantation but to other points within Fiji that we hope to fly to.

"Naturally, on day one, we will not have had the opportunity to undertake many of the changes that we wish, but this will occur progressively and as rapidly as we can achieve over a three to four-month period.

"Ultimately, we would prefer to operate more modern aircraft than the Twin Otters but at the moment we are constrained from doing so by the limitations of Fiji's airfields which are not capable of taking larger aircraft with higher landing speeds and high pressure tyres.

"We hope to work in partnership with AFL so that over time airfields will be upgraded and we can upgrade aircraft types progressively," Campbell says.

He adds that the legal challenge mounted by Air Fiji, which was designed to prevent their entry into the local market, would likely to continue to frustrate their efforts in bringing more competitive products to the market.

However, Campbell says Air Pacific's intentions were to grow the domestic market for residents of Fiji by making air travel more affordable, accessible, comfortable and reliable and to facilitate tourism distribution throughout the country.

Grow domestic market: "We are on record as saying that airfares will be reduced by up to 50 percent versus today's levels and this will be done.

"Not every ticket on every flight will be reduced.

"There will be an array of fares managed through the yield management system of Air Pacific in which the cheapest fares will have the most rigid conditions, whilst the more expensive fares will have full flexible conditions so that customers can choose the product that suits them best under both the rules and cost levels of the fares," he says.

Because the airline has to recruit and train operating flight crew for the ATR42-500, the initial operations of the aircrafts would be limited.

There is currently a core team of pilots from Mount Cook Airlines in New Zealand but seven local pilots have already been recruited and undergoing training.

These local pilots will progressively enter the airline and take over from the Mount Cook pilots who are expected to complete their service with the Pacific Sun over the next two years.