Air Pacific plans flights to India

Air Pacific plans to fly direct to India, South America and beyond the US West Coast from 2011, says chief executive officer John Campbell. He revealed the airline's plans in response to a call by Interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry for the airline to seriously examine flying to destinations well past Australia. Mr Campbell said the airline's current B747-400 aircraft were capable of flying up to 15 hours non-stop and could service points in South East Asia and North East Asia/China. He said the new aircraft type ordered by Air Pacific the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was required to service points in India and beyond the US West Coast or South America non-stop. He said these new aircraft would not available until 2011. "The B747-400 is a very large aircraft with 452 seats and this size aircraft is too large to use to economically open services to new, undeveloped destinations," said Mr Campbell.

"The way in which we progress development in the interim is through partnership arrangements with other airlines in which we agree special fares and pricing on connecting services via Japan, Australia, New Zealand and USA to Fiji," he said. "Air Pacific currently has special fare arrangements with China Eastern and China Southern Airlines serving Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou; with Air India serving four points and with Singapore Airlines covering five points in India plus numerous other arrangements with a variety of other airlines." Mr Campbell said the further development stage was codeshare, which was being explored. He said as markets were developed using pricing and indirect codeshare services, these would grow to a size to be able to cope with the introduction of direct flights using larger aircraft. Currently Air Pacific operates 112 flights per week servicing 17 destinations in 11 countries.

Of the 112 flights, 34 are to Australia and New Zealand. Destinations being serviced by Air Pacific are; Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland, Christchurch, Port Vila, Honiara, Apia, Tonga, Tarawa, Christmas Island, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Tokyo, Nadi and Suva. Air Pacific's annual revenue is in excess of $500million with more than half of the total revenue being earned from Australia and New Zealand routes. Mr Campbell said the airline supported the development and diversification of source markets and regularly revised the economics of those opportunities. Mr Campbell said while it was wise to grow all tourism source markets, no one could escape the fact that Australia and New Zealand were Fiji's nearest neighbours and would always be responsible for a greater share of visitor arrivals.

Courtesy: Fiji Times

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