THE Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) will begin operations in Bougainville after it was provided USD 238,000 to re-establish service.
Funding from the Autonomous Bougainville Government will allow the mission to build a hangar which will house at least one aircraft from 2026.
MAF is expected to operate into difficult to reach communities with medicine, supplies and food.
In Papua New Guinea last year, the MAF flew 31,157 passengers – pastors and missionaries, health and community workers, teachers and students, and paying passengers to airstrips not serviced by commercial airlines.
The aircraft carried 1587 tonnes of cargo, hundreds of plywood or roofing iron sheets and other construction of more than one million kilometres.