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Sports |
Travellers deserve better
YOU can fool the people of PNG
sometimes Wasantha Kumarasiri, but you cannot fool them all the
time.
Enough is enough and the people of this nation deserve to know
the truth, the truth about why they have to pay some of the
highest airfare on earth.
When Air Niugini signed the lease for the last B767 in 2002, the
management knew that the lease would expire in July-August of
2007. Everybody in management knew that it was a five-year
lease. In fact, they knew the exact expiry date.
You (Kumarasiri) was the general manager of finance prior to
your current position of CEO. You had more than ample time to
find a suitable replacement.
For your information, most airlines in the world are modernising
their fleets (unlike Air Niugini) and there are a lot of B767s
on the market now.
If you had looked hard enough, I am sure, you would have located
one within three months.
You and your management’s incompetence would cost the company
and the country millions of kina.
You have added insult to injury by not only wet leasing a B767
from Viva Macau for about two months, and forcing Air Niugini’s
B767 pilots and cabin crew to go on leave, but you have leased
an aircraft that is not suitable for Air Niugini’s operations.
Your decision to wet lease an aircraft that is not approved for
extended range operations, is going to cost Air Niugini hundreds
of thousands of kina extra.
This additional cost is due to the fact that flights to the
Asian destinations would take a lot longer than normal because
they would be re-routed to enable the aircraft to remain within
60 minutes range of suitable airports.
Somebody will have to pay for the additional operational and
fuel costs and it will not be Viva Macau, I can assure you.
Air Niugini will also miss out on hundreds of thousand of kina
in revenue, due to the reduced payload because of all the extra
fuel that is required for the longer flights.
To add to all these, there was an article “Flight disruptions
hit tuna exports” (Sept 6) that the country and the tuna
industry is going to miss out on millions of kina worth of
export income and hundreds of people associated with the tuna
industry are going to lose their jobs as result.
And it won’t end there either. To pay for their mismanagement,
sooner than later, the Air Niugini management will increase
airfare and blame it again on the high fuel prices.
What Air Niugini is lacking at the moment is a good management
team and a good board.
In today’s cutthroat world of modern aviation, what Air Niugini
needs is people with a working knowledge of the aviation
industry so that they can be ahead of the game.
The industry within the region is so competitive that if you do
not know what you are doing, you would be left behind, and that
is exactly where Air Niugini is now.
But what is most frustrating is that the people of this country
are not only lied to but have to pay dearly with high airfare
for the incompetence and mismanagement by Air Niugini’s
management and the board.
After 32 years of independence, the people of this country
deserve better.
Frequent flyer
Port Moresby
 
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