Air Niugini stands firm with orders of Boeing 737 Max

Business

By PETER ESILA
AIR Niugini has not softened its earlier stand that it is going ahead with the order and delivery of four of the controversial Boeing 737 Max 8s.
Managing director Alan Milne was responding to a report in The National on Friday that it had softened its stance after two recent Max 8 crashes.
“That is not true. We haven’t (changed our position).
“We will take the (Boeing 737 Max 8) aeroplane. Nothing has changed.
“However, Air Niugini’s position is that if there is any modification to the aeroplane with technical changes, or even changes to operational procedures by pilots, if any of that is required as a result of these investigations, obviously it will be fully incorporated.
“That will be done well before the aeroplane even starts getting built, let alone delivered to us.
“Boeing have been in touch with me after the Ethiopian Airlines accident and the Lion Air accident as well.
“The investigations for both accidents are still ongoing, so we can’t really comment on what is the cause of it.”
Air Niugini has four Max 8 aircraft on order: two will be delivered next year and the other two in 2021.
He said Civil Aviation Safety Authority (Casa) had also reached out to Air Niugini about its intentions.
“Yes, they (Casa) have spoken already and the (Civil Aviation) Minister (Alfred Manase) has confirmed that as well.”
“I won’t refer directly to our correspondence with Casa because that is confidential.”
Milne said the grounding of the Max 8 worldwide was a short-term problem.
“I think they will resolve the problem and they will start rolling that out to other aeroplanes,” he said.
“There is no threat or issue to Air Niugini at this point in time, because this problem will be resolved sooner rather than later.”
“I am fully confident the issue will be fully resolved by the time we get the aeroplanes. My confidence level is that this will be resolved in months.”
Milne also clarified some misreporting in The National about operational risk.