PX ‘striving to minimise disruptions’ of service

National, Normal

AIR Niugini yesterday said it is doing all it can to minimise disruptions to its international and domestic flights in the past week.
In a statement, the airline’s management said it had operated 70 extra flights/services using its Fokker 100 and Dash 8 aircraft fleet to cater for the increased demand created by the PNG LNG project and the PNG Games travel requirements over the past two weeks.
Responding to last Friday’s front page report in The National, the airline said it had arrangements in place to deal with disruptions, adding that to cater for extra demand, it had increased capacity by leasing an F100 from an airline in Australia.
It said a few years ago, the airline operated only one wide-body aircraft and was vulnerable to constant disruptions.
It has now changed to a B757 aircraft, giving additional assurance of service reliability.
On the domestic sector, the airline now had 14 aircraft compared to 10 a few years ago, it said.
“Whilst the airline is doing its best efforts to provide a more reliable service, behaviour of the equipment is unpredictable.
“When such events take place the airline has sufficient people and parts to rectify the defects,” the statement added.
“The airline is committed to its high safety standards and will not compromise safety for commercial needs.”