Air Niugini may readjust flights

AIR Niugini says it may be forced to withdraw its Sydney flights and downgrade the Brisbane flights to narrow-body aircraft should the proposed codeshare arrangements with Qantas is rejected by Australian regulators.
In July, Qantas announced plans to end flights between Cairns and Port Moresby, currently operated by QantasLink Q400 turboprops, and launch a daily Brisbane-Port Moresby service with the Boeing 737-800s.
The change, which Qantas said was to better serve the business market, was due to take place on October 30.
Currently, Qantas and Air Niugini have a codeshare arrangement where the Australian carrier adds its QF airline code on the PNG carrier’s flights from Port Moresby to Brisbane and Sydney.
There is no code-sharing on the Cairns-Port Moresby route, where Qantas operates up to 12 return flights a week with Q400 turboprops and Air Niugini operates up to 11 return flights a week with Fokker 70 jets.
The codeshare is conducted on a free sale basis, where both carriers, independent from the other, set their own prices, set their own fare classes and rules, operate independent yield management systems and sell through independent sales networks. Each carrier had access to the “whole seat inventory”. Decisions on routes and frequencies are made independent of each other.
On September 5, Qantas applied to Australia’s International Air Services Commission to codeshare on the Cairns-Port Moresby route under the same free sale basis as part of an updated agreement to reflect the Australian carrier’s network changes to Papua New Guinea.