Have planes, will fly: Somare
 

WITH two large Boeing aircraft, Air Niugini will have the operational flexibility to consider international flight options that are economically viable for the company and its shareholders, Minister for State Enterprises Arthur Somare said yesterday.
He said the management expected to achieve this by early December.
He hoped that with the additional capacity on international routes, tourism operators would do their part to boost the industry.
Last week, Air Niugini put into operation a B757-200 leased from Icelandair at K3 million a month.
It has also leased a B767 from Brunei Air but delivery has been delayed.
In the interim, Air Niugini has leased a similar B767 from Viva Macau.
The national airline also has five Dash-8s and five Fokker 100 aircraft and is expected to add to the fleet to improve schedule reliability and adequate redundancy.
Mr Somare said the B757 would be a valuable asset in terms of its utilisation on selected routes as well as to provide a back-up option for the B767.
“Air Niugini has experienced some challenging times recently. However, with its current re-fleeting exercise, we are confident the airline’s on-time performance would improve greatly,” he said in a statement after inspecting the B757.
Treasury Minister Patrick Pruaitch, who accompanied Mr Somare during the inspection, congratulated Air Niugini and said he hoped the airline would ensure that its services were efficient and that its customers, the travelling public, were not disadvantaged.