Air Niugini expands heavy maintenance checks

By PETER ESILA
AIR Niugini has now expanded its in-house heavy maintenance checks to include other airlines from Pacific region commencing with Solomon Airline’s Dash 8 aircraft this week.
Managing director Alan Milne said in Port Moresby yesterday that it was a milestone for the airline and would see them be a heavy maintenance check or C-check hub of the region.
He said a ‘C’ check was a mandatory major inspection carried out after a certain period of time and flight hours, and was typically carried out every two to three years, while an ‘A’ and ‘B’ check were lighter checks done every two to six months.
Milne confirmed that Air Niugini would earn revenue from this.
He said it was a milestone achievement for the airline to carry out in-house heavy maintenance checks for the first time on aircraft belonging to another airline, adding that this expansion of services reflected their continuous training and successful professional development programme.
“With my engineering background for over 38 years, I can assure everyone that the staff here at Air Niugini engineering are some of the best I have seen,” Milne said.
“I also acknowledge the board and management of Solomon Airlines for their trust and confidence in us.
“Port Moresby is perfectly located to look after some of the region’s jets, including lot of the fleets that operate in Australia.”
He said currently there were not many facilities in Australia and a lot of the operators were sending their aircrafts to Europe for heavy maintenance checks.
“So we see Air Niugini perfectly positioned to start doing that maintenance,” he said.
Milne said since last July, Air Niugini’s in-house heavy maintenance checks, apart from achieving costs saving by keeping money in PNG, had resulted in improved quality of the completed aircraft.
It also ensured capacity building, in terms of local knowledge and up-skilling of maintenance staff – especially young PNG aircraft maintenance engineers who are coming through the ranks.
Solomon Airlines manager aircraft maintenance Julai Tomadek said his airline used to go to Cairns, Australia, for heavy maintenance checks but coming to Port Moresby was more cost effective.