We Say - 1
We Say
In December, the world’s second largest airline, United, an American carrier, slid into bankruptcy. Several other large United States airlines have collapsed in recent years, as have some European airlines. In Australia, the demise of Ansett, and now Air New Zealand’s struggle for survival, are events that have had a direct impact on the economies of Pacific Islands states, which are highly dependent on trade, tourist and investment links with Australia and New Zealand.
Globally, the turmoil in the civil aviation industry is expected to continue for some years. Ignore the glamour. It is a hard, hard business. More airlines with illustrious names are expected to go to the wall. Few airlines make a lot of money, except for brief bursts of prosperity. It is against this depressing background that a new era of folly in the saga of Pacific Islands aviation has dawned. The players are some of Oceania’s smallest countries and airlines. They should have learnt from some of the region’s bigger countries and airlines, but they have not.
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Common sense is floundering beneath waves of nationalism and jealousy. Some countries will lose an awful lot of money, quite possibly ruinously so.
That’s what happened with Samoa and Polynesian Airlines, Fiji and Air Pacific, Vanuatu and Air Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Air Niugini, Nauru and Air Nauru, and Kiribati and an old jet operated by Air Tungaru. Niue got burnt too.
In August, during the Pacific Islands Forum meeting, the Forum’s Smaller Islands States—the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Nauru, Niue and the Marshall Islands—met as a sub-regional group and afterwards issued a statement that said amongst other things that they resolved “to address the inadequacy of international air links among themselves through cooperative actions and, in particular, reaffirmed cooperation among Central Pacific nations on the establishment of a sub-regional airline.”
By that time, unbeknownst to other smaller islands countries, Kiribati had leased an expensive ATR-72 turboprop, costing a reported US$110,000 a month, sitting idle at Bonriki Airport because Kiribati didn’t have the means to get it certified for commercial passenger services. That small hitch was sorted out finally in December and the aircraft began operating to Fiji.
Kiribati intends to operate a service to Nauru, thus clashing with Air Nauru’s service to Majuro, thus clashing with an Air Marshall Islands service to Tarawa with a much smaller aircraft, and to Tuvalu, which won’t let Air Kiribati sell Tuvalu-Fiji trips because that would hit a service run by Air Fiji, which Tuvalu partly owns. The Tarawa/Fiji service clashes with an Air Nauru service (A$580 return). Air Kiribati’s intended fare was reported to be A$1000. Doesn’t all that amount to healthy competition that will benefit passengers by keeping fares down?
The only competition will be in who loses the most money. Airlines cost heaps of money, heaps more than small, indigent Central Pacific states can afford.
There are now too many aircraft chasing too few passengers in a region that simply can’t support a lot of airlines. Everyone’s doomed to go broke together. Air Marshall Islands already is. Air Nauru’s finances are an epic Pacific mystery especially with the catastrophic state of Nauru’s affairs just now.
The Central Pacific states, including the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau, have talked of jointly operating a sub-regional airline for years. Equipped with a second jet, Air Nauru is the ready-made logical solution. Surely a joint operating agreement could be worked out, so bringing small islands states at least a trickle of income and a reliable and adequate service, instead of the losses now about to loom.
There are some other service difficulties to take into account, and Air Nauru as a sub-regionally supported enterprise would not be a complete solution for them. But otherwise, the scene developing now is a sorry state of affairs.
Another new aviation enterprise to be regarded with foreboding is Tonga’s launch in November of flights to New Zealand, Australia and Honolulu with a leased Boeing 757 jet. A lot of Tongans are not at all happy with what the government-owned Royal Tongan Airlines is attempting to do since it lost about $T11 million in 18 months trying to run a small leased jet just to Auckland. Now it is competing directly against Air New Zealand and Polynesian Airlines having previously gained a nice little seat-share deal with Air New Zealand.
Royal Tongan is to be wished the best of luck. But, oh dear!
