Safety is a top priority at Air Niugini and they pride themselves on maintaining the highest safety standards. Because of this, there have been occasions where unscheduled maintenance events have affected their operating schedule, causing disruptions to customers travel plans.
Air Niugini want to assure their valued customers that they have a robust maintenance program and their highly skilled staff work day and night to ensure that the aircraft are safe and reliable.
Air Niugini acknowledges the support of external stakeholders particularly CASAPNG and the Director and his team as well as AIC and Niusky Pacific Limited and their respective teams.
The Fokker fleet have served well; however, it is time to replace them with more modern aircraft and selection process is underway to acquire 11 new next generation jet aircrafts. These aircraft will be larger and more fuel efficient than the present fleet and will expand the schedule and increase frequency. In the meantime they will have more capacity by September with additional Q400 Turboprop and Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
This will improve Air Niugini’s schedule integrity, until the new regional jets arrive. Acting Chief Executive Officer Gary Seddon apologized for the disruption to customers travels plans in the lead up to Easter and over the long weekend.
“The current situation is not representative of the premium carrier that Air Niugini strives to be.” “We have accelerated plans to bring on additional fleet.”
“This provides more schedule reliability, and greater value to our customers.”
“We have also engaged plans to increase our staff complement to handle passenger volume growth more effectively.”
Seddon added that they understood that air travel can be a significant expense and they are committed to being transparent and providing a range of fare options to meet travel needs and budgets.
For those whose travel plans are impacted by the unscheduled maintenance event, they will be accommodated on the next available flight.
He encouraged customers to sign up for email newsletters and follow Air Niugini on social media to stay up to date on latest promotions and offers.