Air Niugini official: Last year was tough for us

AIR Niugini managing director Alan Milne says 2018 was a tough year for Air Niugini, with softening revenue and poor performance on several routes contributing to a substantial loss.
“Coupled with the loss of a Dash-8 aircraft in Mendi due to civil unrest and the loss of a 737-800 in a landing incident in Chuuk, the business struggled to drive change,” Milne said during the leaders’ summit in Port Moresby last week.
“However, in the last quarter, we suspended several loss-making routes and focused on diligent cost control in all areas.
“The ‘higher altitudes’ transformation programme has already delivered a K20 million cost-saving in the last three months.
“The operation has returned a profit in both December and January.”
He said the outlook for this year was good.
Milne said a company strategy was currently being worked on and would be released by end of this month.
He said with staff engagement on the increase, costs were coming down, revenue was steady and operational performance indicators were all trending in the right direction.
“The ‘Higher Altitudes’ transformation programme is underpinning all programmes throughout the business to deliver a turnaround of circa K60 million over 2018,” Milne said.