National flag carrier, Air Niugini has performed exceptionally well in delivering its schedule, outperforming many airlines in Australia and the Pacific.  In June Air Niugini operated 2,260 flights with 2,104 of those serving the domestic market.  When compared with key airlines in Australia for the month of June, Air Niugini’s on time departure performance (flights leaving within 15 minutes of the scheduled departure time) sat at 82% as compared with Qantas at 58.7% and Virgin Australia with 59.8%   The cancellation rate for Air Niugini for June was 3.8% while Qantas cancelled 7.5% of all their services and Virgin Australia cancelling 5.8% of their flights.  Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Bruce Alabaster said “It’s not easy ensuring schedule integrity and with the difficult conditions under which we operate here in PNG that places further pressure on our schedule. “  “I commend all our staff, those at the check-in counter, traffic officers to operating crew, engineers, catering, flight planning and all those involved for their great teamwork, producing excellent results often under testing circumstances. Our on time performance is something we take very seriously and are always working to improve on, and to be performing at a level higher than our peer airlines in the region is a wonderful result. I encourage the team to continue to maintain the good work”