Page 20 - Islands Business May 2023

Aviation Aviation

Continued from page 17 new regime coming in with different policies, priorities and
objectives. And the same thing goes for the airline CEOs.”
don’t have a good quality assurance manager or a good SMS Faktaufon spent much of his tenure calling for closer
manager advising them on compliance, then it’s quite hard for regional cooperation. That has not changed.
them to move forward. From what I have noticed, a lot of it “Now that we’ve grown to this level, there is more reason
really is ‘you don’t know what you don’t know.’” for us to work together because the decisions that we make
Tohi has also noticed an increasing trend of airline boards today, individually as airlines, are going to be major, it can
getting involved in the day-to-day running of airlines, and of be costly. So whatever decisions we make in terms of leasing
politically motivated appointments to these boards. and acquiring new aeroplanes, is vital. And I think the more
“It seems to be a lack of understanding of what a board we can work together, the better it will be for our long-term
should do or stay at the governance level. future success. Because what we’ve been doing over the past
“Most of them have meeting fees so there’s really an years have been short-term planning, which comes with long
incentive for them to meet as often as possible.” term disasters.
Tohi says there may be an opportunity to ramp up “When you see what happened during COVID with the new
governance training, so these boards operate more efficiently aircraft acquisition by Air Kiribati, with Air Vanuatu’s brand-
and with a clearly defined mandate. new airplanes, they’re having to cancel those airplanes
because I don’t think they did their homework properly. So
A veteran reflects this is the type of decisions that will haunt you if you don’t do
Having stepped down as ASPA CEO at the start of this year, proper evaluation of your network and your needs.”
George Faktaufon says many of the challenges, and their Faktaufon sees a reluctance from airlines and their
solutions, remain unchanged. government shareholders to commit to closer cooperation,
“They always say the appropriate aircraft type for the although he believes a model could be created between
Pacific, particularly within the islands, hasn’t been invented Solomon Airlines, Air Vanuatu and possibly, Air Kiribati to
yet. Because you need the speed of a jet but with the cooperate on resources, routes etc.
economics of a 737 or something like that. It’s really hard “They want the benefits, but they don’t want to make the
to get a turboprop with the right economics to make this hard decisions to work together,” Faktaufon says of industry
viable. The solution remains, I think, which we haven’t really stakeholders. “As always, it’s the sovereignty issue I hear in
seriously explored, is cooperating with one another much all the time. We are a sovereign nation and we’re here to
more than what we’re doing now because our cooperation serve the interests of our country. But if you’re struggling to
now is really by convenience, rather than by design.” do that, obviously you need to find some other ways of doing
Like Tohi, Faktaufon says some regional airlines have it. And to me, very clearly, the only way is to do it together.”
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 editor@islandsbusiness.com

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20 Islands Business, May 2023