PNG Air thanks shareholders

PNG Air has acknowledged the support of its shareholders in growing the business from providing only charter services to regular flights for the public.
PNG Air chief executive officer Muralee Siva said: “The aviation industry is highly capital-intensive and needs substantial capital to succeed in the long term.
“The company continues to have great support from its major shareholders – Nasfund and the Mineral Resources Development Company group – and from our principal bankers Bank South Pacific.
“But it still needs more financing to take us through this phase in our development until the benefits of the re-fleeting programme start to be fully realised.”
This comes as PNG Air is transitioning from charter services to regular public transportation.
He said the company’s charter revenue dropped by around 70 per cent between 2012 and 2015, falling from (generating) 50 per cent of the company’s revenue in 2012 to around 16 per cent in 2015.
Siva said the regular public transport market also contracted over the last two years, “after years of double-digit growth up to about 2014”.
“The board and management are working hard to respond to these short-term challenges by taking quick action to lower costs and increase the revenue base,” Siva said.
“The need for PNG Air transition in its operation is in reaction to the drop in fuel prices and its adverse effect on the national economy, plus the winding down of the initial stage of the extractive industry such as the PNG LNG project.