Air Niugini gearing up for China

By MARK HAIHUIE
MORE than 40 people took part in a “China Ready” training workshop organised by Air Niugini in preparation for the airline’s flights to Shanghai, China, from next year.
Air Niugini chief executive Simon Foo said that negotiations on the planned flights had been positive.
The airline was behind the hosting of the training.
“Because we are inaugurating flights to China, I believe that we need to get the industry here behind it, to be ready and trained to take care of our visitors from China when they come here,” Foo said.
“This is the purpose of having this workshop so that industry leaders –  whether it be hotels, airports, transport and relevant stakeholders – have to be on board in terms of how we can manage these tourists when they come.”
He said one good example was that most businesses in PNG did not have access to Union Pay.
“Most of these Chinese do not have cards but will pay using Union Pay cards,” he said.
“We need to gear ourselves up to make sure we are ready for it. We need to engage with our banks to have that facility for the Chinese tourists.
“At the moment, it is progressing to target. We still have to go through further discussions on the direct flights and I will be going over to finalise these discussions with other airlines and other operators out there. We are targeting the first quarter of 2018.”