But regional airline challenges remain
David Tohi is a new broom at the Association of South Pacific Airlines (ASPA).
While he takes over from Fiji’s George Faktaufon, who spent more than 30 years as ASPA Chief Executive Officer, Tohi also has deep experience in the sector, working as CEO for Transport in Tonga’s civil service, as Manager for Corporate Quality and Safety at Air Niugini, and with stints at Royal Tongan Airlines, the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand, and most recently, as an aviation regulatory compliance specialist.
ASPA members will meet in Nadi at the end of May, where they will share notes on how the reopening of their sector has progressed post-pandemic and pick up issues that have long thwarted the industry, but were exacerbated by the economic havoc caused by COVID-19.
Tohi also sees this meeting, and consultations he has already commenced, as an opportunity to revisit ASPA’s mandate and ensure it is delivering what its members want.
He has identified two areas where the region’s airlines could be better supported: in safety management systems (SMS) and continuing airworthiness.
“Those are two quite specialised areas and the problem is that throughout the Pacific there is a lack of expertise in those areas.”
He points to the example of Air Vanuatu spending two weeks on the ground when it went in for maintenance recently, because they couldn’t get a part.
“But the thing is with continuing airworthiness, those guys should have sort of had an idea if they were going to do that inspection, in the worst case they would need this part, so they should have already started planning for that.
“That’s a sort of a simple example of this continuing airworthiness functions. If you don’t have that expertise, then it makes it quite tricky for the airline and especially if you have just one jet operation because that’s 100% of your fleet.”
Tohi says ASPA is looking at training providers to deepen the pool of Pacific inspectors and specialists. He says while there has been decades of training in safety inspections, in most countries they haven’t translated into the appointment of local inspectors, as many of those who undergo training do not have requisite pilot, aircraft maintenance engineer or air traffic control licenses. Tohi says a better option would be to recruit people who already have those licenses, train them further in inspection processes, and then pay them competitively.
He has also provided members with a list of other services ASPA could provide, including internal audits before they are audited by their national authority, improving efficiencies and reducing the cost of safety oversight. Tohi says developing world class manuals for airlines to use to ensure they comply with global standards could be another contribution.
“If we can help the airlines with that aspect, which is the baseline, we’re talking minimum requirements, if we can get that sorted out, I reckon it will be a very big improvement to the way they currently operate and implement.”
He observes that some airline CEOs lack strong technical backgrounds.
“A lot of them are from commercial finance. So if they don’t have a good quality assurance manager or a good SMS manager advising them on compliance, then it’s quite hard for them to move forward. From what I have noticed, a lot of it really is ‘you don’t know what you don’t know.’”
Tohi has also noticed an increasing trend of airline boards getting involved in the day-to-day running of airlines, and of politically motivated appointments to these boards.
“It seems to be a lack of understanding of what a board should do or stay at the governance level.
“Most of them have meeting fees so there’s really an incentive for them to meet as often as possible.”
Tohi says there may be an opportunity to ramp up governance training, so these boards operate more efficiently and with a clearly defined mandate.
A veteran reflects
Having stepped down as ASPA CEO at the start of this year, George Faktaufon says many of the challenges, and their solutions, remain unchanged.
“They always say the appropriate aircraft type for the Pacific, particularly within the islands, hasn’t been invented yet. Because you need the speed of a jet but with the economics of a 737 or something like that. It’s really hard to get a turboprop with the right economics to make this viable. The solution remains, I think, which we haven’t really seriously explored, is cooperating with one another much more than what we’re doing now because our cooperation now is really by convenience, rather than by design.”
Like Tohi, Faktaufon says some regional airlines have suffered from political interference.
“You still have political interference all over the place. And the change of leadership doesn’t help because you have a new regime coming in with different policies, priorities and objectives. And the same thing goes for the airline CEOs.“
Faktaufon spent much of his tenure calling for closer regional cooperation. That has not changed.
“Now that we’ve grown to this level, there is more reason for us to work together because the decisions that we make today, individually as airlines, are going to be major, it can be costly. So whatever decisions we make in terms of leasing and acquiring new aeroplanes, is vital. And I think the more we can work together, the better it will be for our long-term future success. Because what we’ve been doing over the past years has been short-term planning, which comes with long term disasters.
“When you see what happened during COVID with the new aircraft acquisition by Air Kiribati, with Air Vanuatu’s brand-new airplanes, they’re having to cancel those airplanes because I don’t think they did their homework properly. So this is the type of decisions that will haunt you if you don’t do proper evaluation of your network and your needs.”
Faktaufon sees a reluctance from airlines and their government shareholders to commit to closer cooperation, although he believes a model could be created between Solomon Airlines, Air Vanuatu and possibly, Air Kiribati to cooperate on resources, routes etc.
“They want the benefits, but they don’t want to make the hard decisions to work together,” Faktaufon says of industry stakeholders. “As always, it’s the sovereignty issue I hear in all the time. We are a sovereign nation and we’re here to serve the interests of our country. But if you’re struggling to do that, obviously you need to find some other ways of doing it. And to me, very clearly, the only way is to do it together.”
ROUTE MAP: UPDATES FROM THE REGION’S AIRLINES
Aircalin: Now flying to Paris, Singapore, Papeete and Australia, some on codeshare arrangements.
Air Nauru: Brisbane-headquartered Air Nauru launched its island-hopper service last October, which runs weekly from Brisbane to Nauru, Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Pohnpei (Federated States of Micronesia) and is subsidised by the Australian government. Air Nauru also recommenced its Fiji service last October. The airline is also undertaking a feasibility study into running a regular freight service to Marshall Islands. The government there declared a state of emergency after the US grounded Guam-based Asia Pacific Airlines, leaving the country with no air cargo service for three months. Asia Pacific Airlines recommenced service in early May.
Air Niugini: PNG’s State Enterprises Minister has signalled PNG’s plans to acquire new aircraft, and to build a K$70million hanger in Port Moresby. Acting CEO Gary Seddon told local media they want to order 11 regional jets and, in the meantime, expect to receive six additional leased aircraft by this September. Air Niugini commenced weekly services connecting Australia, PNG and Palau in February. Australia’s Pacific Flight Programme is underwriting the service during its initial phase. Recent problems with its fuel supplier, Puma Energy, has seen the airline ground some domestic flights.
Air Rarotonga: The Cook Islands airline is code sharing services between Rarotonga and Tahiti with Air Tahiti.
Air Tahiti Nui: This year marks the 25th anniversary of the airline’s operations. It uses Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, which it says have cut its carbon footprint by up to 30%. The resumption of Narita-Tahiti services is planned for October, and a Papeete-Seattle, and Seattle-Paris service is now operating. The airline’s growth is somewhat limited by hotel and resort room inventory.
Air Tuvalu: The first aircraft to be owned by the Tuvalu government landed in Funafuti this month. The Twin Otter T2-TV8 will operate on inter-island routes with an October start date.
Air Vanuatu: In November last year, new Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau described Air Vanuatu as a ‘mess’ before replacing the CEO and Board. Since then, mechanical issues forced the two-week grounding of Air Vanuatu’s only Boeing 737 in April, affecting flights to Brisbane, Sydney and Auckland. An Australian-funded assessment of Air Vanuatu’s finances recommended paying down its debt to Air Lease Corporation for lease of its aircraft, and that the Board engage more appropriately with the airline’s staff—at one stage it was meeting several times a week. Meanwhile the airline is working with Solomon Airlines to expand their respective international networks, has restarted direct flights between Brisbane and Santo, and will add flights on the Port Vila-Auckland route in June.
Samoa Airways: This troubled airline (formerly Polynesian Airways) had to terminate a lease late last year for a B737-800, incurring US$4.6million in penalties. It continues to use three DHC-8-300s domestically. Fiji Airways, Qantas, Air New Zealand and Virgin all provide international connections to Samoa. Samoa Airways still has a tax debt and is carrying old debts totalling ST$30 million, according to local media.
Solomon Airlines: The airline had to ground its sole Airbus A320 for almost a fortnight in April due to fuel contamination issues. The cause of that problem is being investigated. The plane is also scheduled to be out of action for two weeks in May for scheduled maintenance. Solomon Airlines is looking to lease a second aircraft (ex-Jetstar stock) by July/August to run charters during the Pacific Games, seasonal work charters, and potentially provide services to Tonga and Samoa in the longer term.
